The Horrors of Sierra Leone's War Spill Into Freetown Hospital
January 24, 1999 - 0:0
FREETOWN Mutilated victims lay bleeding on mattresses along the floor of a main hospital in Freetown, where the horrors and rituals of Sierra Leone's war have descended on the capital. At Connaught Hospital, in the center of this traumatized city, several cried out in pain and despair. Others remained silent, staring unblinkingly into a void. Men, women and children, limbs hacked off and blood dripping from the stumps, were rushed here after rebels of the Revolutionary United Front attacked Freetown's eastern neighborhood of Kissy, and Wellington, a town further south, on Wednesday and Thursday Only a few days earlier, the Nigerian-led intervention force, ECOMOG, claimed its soldiers had cleared the area of rebels who invaded the capital on January 6.
One 28-year-old victim from Kissy, a dazed-looking Jehovah's witness, lay on a stretcher, his entire head camouflaged in bandages. I wouldn't join the rebels, so they insulted me and hit me in the head with a machete, he said slowly in a low voice. Jibaco Sandy, a general practitioner providing primary care for mutilated victims predicted, there will be a lot more deaths, adding, we are lacking everything, drugs, antiseptic and equipment.
Nurses said that the rebels had forced them to hand over all the medical supplies they had. There are 25 other doctors at Connaught, but only one surgeon, Johnston Taylor. By the hospital doorway, people began to bustle. A blue jeep stopped near the porch, and three ECOMOG soldiers brought in two mutilated victims, a man and a child. The man had part of his head sliced by a machete.
The boy, eight years old, appeared stunned as he gazed at his leg, cut in two and held together with a splint and a soiled bandage. When the rebels ran out of ammunition, they came back with machetes, Sandy said. Kaya Tanko, a leading member of the Kamajor Militia, a society of traditional hunters fighting for the government against the rebellion, said his men had helped bring the victims to the hospital.
Tanko said the rebels' tactics were inhuman. The legal representative for the RUF, Omrie Michael Golley, said Friday that rebels were not responsible for the horrific recent atrocities in the east of the capital. Golley said the attacks on civilians were carried out by the Kamajors. Meanwhile, in a dark corner of the hospital, two wounded children were sitting on mattresses, watching women lying beside them, one of whom struggled with an intravenous drip.
Two fathers nearby recounted how rebels attacked their homes. They came while my mother was outside in the back of the house, said Samuel Frazer. They opened fire on her as she tried to get back into the house. They shot her in the head and killed five people, he said. I crouched down on the floor. That's why I'm still alive, he added.
Rebels came to Black Hill Road, where the men live, and started burning houses down. They had a container of gas, which they spread around. When they set the homes on fire, they warned us that they would shoot at anyone who tried to put out the flames, Frazer said. They started shooting, anyhow. That's how my son, Kevin, was shot.
By now, a large crowd had gathered around the hospital doorway. A young ecomog soldier, guarding the door, suddenly became irritated. Pushing against the crowd, he began shooting an AK-47 in the air. Other ECOMOG soldiers, standing at an intersection 100 meters away, began opening fire in random fashion, not all of them shooting in the air. A minute later, two men came running, holding another man whose arm had been dislocated from a bullet wound, clearly visible above the elbow.
By Friday, neither civilian authorities nor ECOMOG had given estimates of injured or dead. (AFP)
One 28-year-old victim from Kissy, a dazed-looking Jehovah's witness, lay on a stretcher, his entire head camouflaged in bandages. I wouldn't join the rebels, so they insulted me and hit me in the head with a machete, he said slowly in a low voice. Jibaco Sandy, a general practitioner providing primary care for mutilated victims predicted, there will be a lot more deaths, adding, we are lacking everything, drugs, antiseptic and equipment.
Nurses said that the rebels had forced them to hand over all the medical supplies they had. There are 25 other doctors at Connaught, but only one surgeon, Johnston Taylor. By the hospital doorway, people began to bustle. A blue jeep stopped near the porch, and three ECOMOG soldiers brought in two mutilated victims, a man and a child. The man had part of his head sliced by a machete.
The boy, eight years old, appeared stunned as he gazed at his leg, cut in two and held together with a splint and a soiled bandage. When the rebels ran out of ammunition, they came back with machetes, Sandy said. Kaya Tanko, a leading member of the Kamajor Militia, a society of traditional hunters fighting for the government against the rebellion, said his men had helped bring the victims to the hospital.
Tanko said the rebels' tactics were inhuman. The legal representative for the RUF, Omrie Michael Golley, said Friday that rebels were not responsible for the horrific recent atrocities in the east of the capital. Golley said the attacks on civilians were carried out by the Kamajors. Meanwhile, in a dark corner of the hospital, two wounded children were sitting on mattresses, watching women lying beside them, one of whom struggled with an intravenous drip.
Two fathers nearby recounted how rebels attacked their homes. They came while my mother was outside in the back of the house, said Samuel Frazer. They opened fire on her as she tried to get back into the house. They shot her in the head and killed five people, he said. I crouched down on the floor. That's why I'm still alive, he added.
Rebels came to Black Hill Road, where the men live, and started burning houses down. They had a container of gas, which they spread around. When they set the homes on fire, they warned us that they would shoot at anyone who tried to put out the flames, Frazer said. They started shooting, anyhow. That's how my son, Kevin, was shot.
By now, a large crowd had gathered around the hospital doorway. A young ecomog soldier, guarding the door, suddenly became irritated. Pushing against the crowd, he began shooting an AK-47 in the air. Other ECOMOG soldiers, standing at an intersection 100 meters away, began opening fire in random fashion, not all of them shooting in the air. A minute later, two men came running, holding another man whose arm had been dislocated from a bullet wound, clearly visible above the elbow.
By Friday, neither civilian authorities nor ECOMOG had given estimates of injured or dead. (AFP)