Sierra Leone: Child soldier haunted by war memories
By Umaru S Jah
Freetown, Sierra Leone, 13th Dec. 2007 - "Memories of what I have done during the rebel war are haunting me night and day," an ex-child combatant disclosed, as he explained how he was actively involved in killing innocent civilians during Sierra Leone’s civil war.
Democratic Republic of Congo.
August 2006 Photo © Tiggy Ridley/IRIN
“I once killed a boy whose age was between 13 and 14 years old. I saw him running, after his parents had been killed by a bomb blast during the rebel attack in Waterloo. I ordered him to stop but he refused and pleaded not to shoot at him. I never realized what I was doing... so I shot and smashed his head off."
When asked whether other killings torment him, the ex-combatant (name withheld) said that while he felt remorse at all the things he had done as a child soldier, the boy’s death had affected him the most because “we both had a similar story”.
He explained how he was forced during the war to become a child soldier. "We were trying to escape with my family after the 1994 rebel attack in Kono, “ he said. “After several hours in the bush, we met a group of armed men with guns and machetes." Then ten years old, he witnessed the brutal killing of his family. "They asked us to line up for inspection. And the commander among them was called Rambo. Except for me, he ordered the killing of everybody including my father, mother and two sisters." Later he was abducted and taken to a children's camp in Kailahun, where he was recruited and taught how to use a gun and other sharp objects to fight.
According to this former child soldier, the young combatants were given drugs as medicine to protect them from their enemies. "They gave us marijuana as coffee to drink, and some was cooked with rice that we ate in order to have a strong resistance and protection against our enemies and other illnesses in the bush,” he said. “Other drugs we often sniffed and made us to realise nothing of what we were doing in the jungle."
From that time onwards, the boy became infamous for killing and looting people's property to an unimaginable extent. "As I was heavily under the influence of drugs, I never knew that what I was doing was wrong. But now that the war is over and everything has returned back to normalcy, I have realised how my life was messed up. And I am feeling sorry for my dead parents and especially the innocent boy I killed while he was trying to escape, just as my parents had before my captivity."
The ex-child combatant has undergone skills training, and has chosen tailoring as a career. But he has refused to go to school fearing that he will one day be identified and shamed by other children.
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