•Yusuf •Photo: Sun News Publishing

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It was indeed a thing of joy when the Nigerian Navy Ship, NNS Aradu and NNS Wamba, visited the ports of Sierra-Leone, as Nigerians in that country trooped out in their hundreds to welcome the war ship and attended the Independence party held by officers and ratings on board the ship.

But the facade of joy and elation soon fizzled out as Saturday Sun came face-to-face with vestiges of the long drawn war that literally brought the West African country to its knees. These were personalised in the victims of the crude and brutal amputations that were carried out by different warlords.

Some of them led Saturday Sun into their worlds of pain, anger, irreparable physical damage and the life of handicap they would now have to live for the rest of their days on earth. And that has still not said anything about the numerous women and young girls who had to undergo gang-rape and serial rape before they were ultimately amputated.

One such living vestige of Sierra-Leone's tortuous journey into self-annihilating war is this 32 year old young man whose dream of a sporting career has been aborted in an unending nightmare of amputation.
His dream in life was to become a world football star. He played good football for a local team in his country and was doing very well and even got a contract to play for a foreign team. But just when he was preparing to leave for his new job, he came in contact with a group of rebels that cut short his dream.

Mamuda Yusuf narrated his painful story to Saturday Sun in Freetown, Sierra-Leone of how he, alongside his fellow footballers, came in contact with the rebels on Kissy Road on their way to a training pitch and how that encounter has left him miserable for the rest of his life.
The 34 year old ex-footballer and father of two recalled that they had boarded the bus that was taking them to a training field in Freetown sometime in 1998, when they met a road block mounted by the rebels. The rebels ordered them to come out of the bus and took them to a corner where over two hundred people were kept. Before the band of aspiring professional footballers knew what was happening, the rebels armed themselves with axes and cutlasses and started chopping off their hands one after another.

He said he watched helplessly as they continued the cutting until it got to his turn. Like a sheep, he stretched out his hands and watched one of the rebels whom, he says, could not have been more than 21 years old chopped off his left hand.
"After chopping off your hand", he said, "the rebels will look at you straight in the eyes and ask you to go and meet Tejan Kabbah (the former Sierra-Leonan president) and get a new hand".
Not only that, he said he watched helplessly as the rebels carelessly threw away the
chopped hands of the over three hundred of them that were amputated on that day.
Since that incident, Yusuf says life has not been the same again for him as he now lives from hand to mouth begging for alms on the streets of Freetown.

After chopping off their hands, he sad the rebels left them in their pains and misery and drove off happily and laughing for a job well done.
The news of their predicament soon filtered round the whole town and he, along the other amputees, were then rescued by Handicapped International, the organization responsible for amputees at the time, where they received treatment.
After the treatment, he said he stayed in the camp for about four years for rehabilitation to fit into his new life before he was finally discharged to go home.

“Life has never been the same again since after that incident. I have never been able to play football again because I cannot get a good balance anymore and I have remained jobless all these years. For lack of something to do, no business, all I do is roam about the streets begging and sometimes go to my friends beg them to keep up my life and take care of my children and thank God for the friends - even when they don’t have money to give to me, they try on their own part to give me words of comfort and hope that everything will be alright. They talk to me, make me sum up courage that my condition is not the end of life and that has kept me this far”.

Life generally, for the average amputee in Sierra-Leone, according to him can best be described as terrible because they have been abandoned to their fate, as nobody (not even the government) cares to know how they are faring.
“The situation is not good. We are in a very terrible state. We have been abandoned to our fate and it has not been easy, we are suffering a lot. I need a job right now because if I have a job, most of my problems will be solved and I will be able to take care of my life and two children. I am not capable to play football any more because I have been cut down so I need a job badly”.

With my baby wrapped on my back, they cut off my legs--- Khadiatu, Kukwana, Chairlady Amputees.
For Khadiatu Fukwana, Wednesday January 20 1999, is a day she can never forget in a hurry for as long as she lives. The mother of seven, who until her encounter with the deadly rebels that fateful day was a food seller in one of the motor parks in Freetown told of how over two hundred men were murdered before her very eyes by the rebels.
Khadiatu, who is also the chairperson of amputees at the Grafton camp in Northern Sierra-Leone, had gone out on that day to carry out her normal business not knowing that she will end up losing her two legs to the sharp cutlasses and axes of the rebels who unknown to her had taken over the city of Freetown.

She told her story to Saturday Sun in this interview at the Grafton camp built by the Norwegian government for amputees in Northern Sierra-Leone of how she lost her two legs.
According to her, “after arresting us, they told us that Sierra Leone will never have peace if they the rebels don’t have peace and that it is only the children of the rich that get the best of everything while the children of the poor are made to suffer.Thereafter, they made us stand in two lines one for the men and the other for the women and passed a verdict on us: the verdict was that all the men were going to die since they are the ones that campaign and vote for bad leaders during elections,while the women will have their two legs cut off because they are the ones that cook and dance for bad leaders during and after elections.

On hearing their verdict, she said she along with other women started to beg the rebels to have mercy on them since they were not politicians but mere traders that struggle to provide food for our children but they refused; they took them into a nearby house and poured petrol around the house with the intention of setting us ablaze but as God would have it, the matches refused to strike and this got them very angry as they pushed us outside, separated the men from the women and began to kill the men one after the other right in front of us. After killing all the men, they now turned to the women and started cutting our hands and legs with sharp cutlasses and axes. Despite all our pleas to have mercy on us and spare our legs, they refused.

I personally begged them to have pity on me because I had just put to bed and even had my baby tied on my back but they refused and went ahead, and when I could no longer stand the horror site, I decided to run away but unfortunately I fell into a gutter and one of the rebels who was runningafter me met me there and cut off my two legs with my baby still wrapped on my back. After cutting off my legs they left me there in pains and I was bleeding profusely while my baby was crying at the same time but there was nothing I could do since I could neither walk nor crawl so I remained there throughout the night and my baby cried all through the night for food but there was nothing I could do and remained like that without water and food. It was indeed only by the grace of God that I survived.

Some people who managed to escape from the hands of the rebels went and told my husband and children that I have been killed by the rebels and my husband immediately mobilized some people and went in search for my body, to enable them give me a befitting burial. On getting to the place where they told them I was killed,they saw me there bleeding and managed to take me to the hospital but on getting there we found out that there was no medical staff to attend to me and many others that were brought there as all of them had fled the area as a result of the war .

So, I stayed there for another three weeks before a group from France came into the country to help wounded civilians but by this time all my legs had gone real bad and rotten and I was smelling like shit. Immediately they saw my condition, they told my husband that they were going to chop a good portion of my legs off through an operation to enable me survive, and my husband told me about it and I began to cry and told them to allow me to die rather than live without legs, but after much counselling from my husband and the medical team I agreed and I was rolled into the theatre and by the time they brought me back, I did not see my legs again and I fainted immediately; it was not easy for me because I could not stand the fact that I have to live without my two legs, so I stayed there for another four months .From there, they moved us to the camps built for amputees, there I stayed another four months before the Norwegian Refugees Council built these houses for us and moved us here.

She says ever since the Norwegian Refugee Council relocated them to the Grafton camp, nobody has bothered to find out how they are faring and that theWorld Food Programme(WFP), only catered for them for six months and abandoned them to their fate, while the government has never bothered to visit or care what happens to them. Even the NGOs that were taking care of them have all left the country since the war has finally come to an end; they now depend on good spirited people especially missionary to feed or hit the streets to beg for alms.

She told Saturday Sun that all they get from the government, is unfulfilled promises, for the past six years and that even theTruth and Reconciliation Committee set up after the war where she along other amputees were invited to tell their story and what they went through has ended with no meaningful result.
“If you ask me about life generally, I will tell you it is not easy for me because I have seven children that are in school right now and some have managed to write their WASC but how to get money to enable them further their education is one of the greatest problems that I have right now because they now sit at home, waiting for the greatest miracle to happen; even the ones that are in primary school, I don’t have money to buy uniform for them, not to talk of providing three square meal. It is only my first child that is struggling to help me as he goes out to do some job for people but how far can he go, he is just a child”.
Khadiatu, an indigene of Makeni, married a man from Freetown and says she has remained in Freetown since her marriage where she was doing her cooking business before the war broke out ,forcing them to take refuge in a mental home in Freetown for about three weeks before the rebels got wind of their stay there and struck the home forcing them to flee. But before fleeing the home, she had told her husband to take six

out of their seven children and run to the hills where it was considered safe.
Her decision paid off at the end of the day because if her husband and the other grown up children had been with her when the rebels attacked them, they would have all been dead.
For now, all she needs, she says, is for theSierra Leonian government to send her back to New York where she had gone in 2001 to acquire an artificial legs and undergo a therapy to fit into her new life. Khadiatu says she had to run back home when the Norwegian government announced that the houses built for the amputees will only be allocated only to amputees that are present on ground.
For fear of being homeless and the fact that she does not have money to build a house.
She disclosed to Saturday Sun how she became the chairlady of the amputees.

“It all started during our days in the camp when virtually everyone that came visiting reffered to me as the mama of the camp since I was the oldest of all the 48 women in the camp then; it so happened that each time any group came visiting, I did the talking and let them know the areas that we would need assistance and so the committee in the camp on seeing these qualities in me, made me chairlady.
As chairlady, part of her responsibilities is to ensure that the welfare of amputees are well taken care off and counsel the youths not go astray and engage in violence activities and mediate whenever there is a problem and by so doing she says a lot ofcases that would have gone to the police have been resolved peacefully”.

One of the things she says she can never forget duringthe war, was the horrible sight of seeing thousands of people packed into a house and set ablaze by the rebels. “That is one thing I can never forget because you hear the cry of men, women, children and even
babies crying for help. It is so painful and yet you couldn’t do anything, I will never forget that gory sight”.

After stripping us naked, they cut our hands with axes -- Soris Sawane.
72 year old Soris Sawane said he was attacked by the rebels on January 6, 1999 when he tried to help one of his relatives that was shot by the rebels to the hospital.
On their way, he said they met the rebels at a junction where they ordered us to put the man down and accused us of being the ones that voted Tejan Kabba as president.
On their way to where the rebels were going to cut off their hands, Sawane said they came across a mosque filled with worshippers who had gathered for the Friday prayers, the rebels went into the mosque and killed every single person there before taking them to their camp where they met their commander waiting for them.

On getting to the camp, they told the commander all they have done and presented us as those they captured alive and asked him if they should go ahead and kill us or cut off our hands. The commander then ordered that our hands be cut off. Thereafter, they took us to a spot where they had a big wood placed at one side ofthe compound and some men carrying axes, cutlasses and knives .There was plenty of blood we also saw many others whose hands had just been cut off writhing in pain; then they now asked us to stretch out our hands one after the other after stripping us naked and started cutting our hands.

One of the men with us who could not stand the horror and tried to run away, was shot and killed by the rebels; so, those of us, whose hands had not been cut at that time had to cooperate with them so as not to get killed. After cutting my hands, one of the rebels, a very young boy, brought out a black nylonbag and packed the hands inside it and took it away.

When they finished with us, they set us free to go and we started trekking to a safe place in one of the hills in Freetown; but I got so tired on the way because for three days I ate nothing so I found a place to rest. When I saw the rebels taking away some of us they have captured, I hid myselfuntil they passed and from there I managed to get home and met my wife who started crying as soon as she saw me and immediately called some people and they took me to a dispensary where I received treatment and spent the night and from there I was taken to the Abeerdeen Camp, where I spent about four months before we were moved to this place, built by the Norwegian government.

It was by the great mercies of God that we managed to survive the war.While in the camp, Soris Sawane told Saturday Sun ,they got help from both theUnited Nations, NGOs and Christain organizations, whosupplied them regularly with food and other items but after they vacated the camp and moved to Grafton, allthe supplies automatically came to a stop.
Before losing his hands to the sharp cutlases of the rebels, Pa Sawane said he used to be a driver and drove heavy duty vehicles for over forty years of his life before the sad incident that automatically made him quit driving; like every other amputee at the Grafton camp, the72 year old man is not left out in appealing to government to come to their aid.

He specifically called on government to put some basic amenities like health centre, school and water to be put in place at the camp to reduce the suffering of amputees who according to him have had to pay through their nose to get medical attention from general hospital, sent their children to school and trek a long distance to get good drinking water.
Sawane also wants government to revisit and launch the much talked about amputee trustfund, which will go a long way to reduce the hardship they are going through.

“A lot of money has been donated to the amputees, so let them use the money to assist us to enable us start a trade instead of going about the street begging. Istay home all day Monday to Friday go begging and sometimes I go to my friends to beg for food and they give me but for how long will continue to live likethis?”.
Even though he has lots of praises for Nigerian soldiers who he said were solely responsiblefor the restoration of peace in Sierraleone, Sawane is not happy with Nigeria because his eldest son,who is supposed to be taking care of him has forgotten about him since he travelled to Nigeria. To make matters worse, his son has married a Nigerian woman and they have three children but he has refused to come and show him his grand children.With that experience, he said he would not want any ofhis children to visit Nigeria because if they do,“they will not come back”.

But for ECOMOG, all of us would ‘ve been killed
Braimah Kamara may not be an amputee, but he, like the amputees of Sierraleone has a story to tell. As a matter of fact, he is one of the victims of war ravaged Sierra Leone and has a bad leg to show for it.
Kamara, who is also the secretary general of the war wounded lives with hundreds of people like him in a shanty camp built with tarpaulin by the United Nations in Grafton.
He told Saturday Sun of how the rebels met him and his family right in their home on January 6, when the rebels raided Freetown. In the course of the attack,two of his brothers were amputated, while the rebels descended on him and gave him the beating of his life.

As if that was not enough, they subjected him todifferent kinds of torture and eventually shot him on the left leg. Thereafter, along his other brothers they were taken to the hospital for treatment, but there was little or nothing for thedoctors to do to extract the bullets from his leg due to lack of fund to carry out the operation and he has
been living with the bullets in his body ever since and it has not been easy for him medically and otherwise.

A group of doctors from Holland and France who were in Sierraleone to attend to war victims who would have removed the bullet from Kamara’s body could not do so because by the time they came in contact with him their stay in Sierraleone had expired and were on their way out of the country.
However, they attended to him and made all the medical recommendation to the government to start from there which they never did.

He narrated to Saturday Sun, how he survived the war.
“It was very difficult, most times we used tosneak into the town to beg but we were able to survive through the help of humanitarian organizations, NGOs ,World Food Programme who usually gave us food items and other gifts and also from WFP, UN agencies as well as christains and muslims organizations, who usually bring gift to us but by the time the WFP left in 2004,they stopped to give us food and things have not been easy for me at all.

The cost of living is not easy,even the shelter provided for us is not conducive because whenever it rains the whole place gets flooded and this has resulted to many of our members getting pneumonia and some have died as a result of the harsh condition and we have been here since 1999 and the government has not been able to do anything for us, we have been neglected and marginalized by thepast government of Sierraleone and we hope that this new government will look into our matter and address it ”.

However, even though a new government has taken over,he says his members have not been able to get in touch with him and arrange for a meeting where they intend to tell the new president about their plight; he ishopeful that one day they will have that opportunity to hold talks with the government because even though nobody cares about their welfare they were surprised to see politicians invading their camps during the elections to beg for their votes and thay did not let them down. He said they all participated and during the elections because they want development and positive change.
He wants the new government to implement the recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee so that they can have all the things due to them.

Above all,he said he would want to be self reliant because hedoes not want people to keep giving him food and other items to take care of his family and would also want
to go back to school because he was in school when the war broke out.
One of the things that he says he can never forget about the war that ravaged his country is the mass amputation. “ I will never forget it because it was in my very presence that the rebels amputated my two brothers”.
“Finally, I want to thank the people and government ofNigeria, who sent in ECOMOG to stop the war in our country and I want to pray God to take care of all the families of the soldiers that died during the war, may God continue to bless them because if not for them, all of us in Sierraleone would have been killed by the rebels.”

‘I was raped by ten rebels’
Musu Faru, a widow and mother of four, who lost her husband during the war has a bitter story to tell about the war. While others have their hands or legs cut off and even shot by the rebels, this mother of four got a double portion from the rebels, who did not only shoot her but raped by eight of them.
Ever since that sad incident, Musu, has been suffering from pile, high blood pressure and drips from the anus.She says sometimes the liquid that comes out from her anus has a very offensive odour that she hardly gets out of her tent at such period.However ,before accepting to talk to Saturday Sun, she requested that the interview be done in private, because she has gone through a lot of humiliations in the hands of the men at the WFP camp who use her rape ordeal during the war to insult her at the slightest provocation.

While at a private corner close to the canteen, Musu,who cried throughout the interview, told of how the war caught up with her in her village in Kabala, forcing them to flee the village to a safer haven in a farm sometime in April 1998 and stayed there until July when suddenly they heard the sound of gunshots.
The rebels soon got into the farm and killed a number of people including her husband, while she managed to escape with her children and trekked to a village ofover eighteen miles and hid inside the bush until August.

She said after hiding there for three days without water and food, she decided to go and get some fruits for her children from a nearby orchard when she came in contact with the rebels, who had packed everythingthat she had gathered. “When I turned to go, they stopped me to ask where I was coming from and where Iwas going to; I told them that I was a stranger but while we were still talking, my children came lookingfor me and found me with soldiers.

The soldiers now asked me to remove my clothes but I refused them; they now asked me to stretch out my hands for them to cut off and I started to beg them to spare me but they said they will only spare me and let me go if I take them to where the rest of the people are hiding and as I tried to pointed to where the people are, they grabbed my hands and started to beat me and tore myclothes and raped me through the anus, eight of them
and immediately my anus came out and I developed pile and have been suffering from pile since that incident.

After raping me, they captured me and took me to their camp where myself and other women were made to cook,wash and do other job for them and I remained there in that condition until October when they selected 45 people among us, put them inside a house and burnt them .It was when I saw them moving that I tried to escape and they shot me and one of my children and killed several others before leaving the place.

Few hours after they left, the ECOMOG soldiers came to the place and took us to a safer place and separated the wounded and took us to the hospital where we stayed until a group ofmedical team from France came to the hospital and took us to a camp and kept us there until late Maxwell Kobe came to the camp and asked us what we wanted and we told him that we want to go home and from there he talked to our president and they took us to another camp”.

“It has not been easy medically for me since that incident. I have gone for series of test and scanningand x-ray, As I speak with you, I have diabetes, heart problem and pile all on me alone”. For now ,all she wants is to send her children toschool for them to get better educated because according to her the war in Sierraleone happened as a result of the level of illiteracy in the country and the only way to avoid a recurrence of that she says is to get everyone educated.

Perhaps , what is most painful about her rape incident was when she appeared on the Truth and Reconciliation Committee set up by the government and saw one of the men that took part in the rape and even pointed to him and nothing was done to bring him to justice .