As my
mother and I tried to run out of the house we saw about eight Kamajors [civil
defense forces]. Most had guns and a few had machetes. My mother dashed down
the verandah but they caught her and then shot her. She fell about five meters
from the house. By this time several of them had surrounded me. They ordered me
to sit down and one held me tight by the head while the other cut my neck with
his machete. I tried to protect my neck with my left hand but they slashed it.
They said in the Kono language, “you'll be dead—all of you are RUF
[Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group] wives.” After
cutting
me, I lay still, pretending to be dead. I was bleeding so much. After a while I
heard them say, “she done die.” Then I crawled into the bush and hid until my
family came to help me.[100]
- twelve-year-old girl, Sierra Leone
In
conflict situations, children are the frequent targets of brutal,
indiscriminate acts of violence. In an oft-repeated statistic, UNICEF estimates
that during a recent ten-year period, two million children died as a direct
result of armed conflict, and an additional six million were injured or
disabled.
In
Sierra Leone, children have been murdered, mutilated, tortured, beaten, raped,
and enslaved for sexual purposes. Some of the atrocities committed by the rebel
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) were unthinkable. Infants and children were
thrown into burning houses, the hands of toddlers as young as two were severed
with machetes, and girls as young as eight were sexually abused.[101]
A
farmer in Sierra Leone told Human Rights Watch of a rebel attack against his
wife and six children: “They shot my wife, killed two of the children, shot my
seven-year old through the stomach, and cut another on the buttocks. Two got
away.”[102]
Dozens of similar cases were reported to Human Rights Watch.
Medical
records from one hospital showed that out of 265 war wounded admitted during a
three-month period in 1998, approximately one-quarter were children. During a
nine-day period in February of that year, 111 children died during rebel
attacks in the Bo area, according to reports from humanitarian agencies.[103]
Another
Sierra Leonean farmer told Human Rights Watch of a July 11, 2001 attack by the
RUF:
We tried
to run but they caught five of us, including the children aged ten, five and
about two. They tied us together at the waist and told us to start walking. One
of the RUF was carrying the two-year-old. They said, “today some of you will
die; you people are Kamajors.” As we walked the children were crying and
slowing us down. The commander was complaining and about half an hour later, he
ordered us to halt and then took his machete and started hitting us. First he
hit me twice on the head and on my left arm, and then he started hitting the
children one after the other. It was pathetic. The children were crying and
begging but he killed them anyway.[104]
Rape
and sexual assault of girls are common in armed conflicts. A newspaper reporter
in Sierra Leone told Human Rights Watch. “There was rampant raping. I saw a
fifteen-year-old girl raped right before me. They left her, but they captured
others, and among them was a seven-year-old girl.”
Pro-government
militias in Sierra Leone, like the Kamajors have also committed atrocities
against civilians. Over twenty civilians were killed by militias, including
nine children, in four attacks documented by Human Rights Watch in June and
July 2001. Some nineteen more civilians, including eleven children, were
wounded.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/children/9.htm#Refugee