Liberian children pick up pieces of broken lives
Monday, 14 February 2005
Liberian children pick up pieces of broken lives
LAINE CAMP, Guinea, Feb 14 (Reuters) - The four young siblings weep as they leave their foster home to make the short trip back to their war shattered homeland of Liberia.
"I will miss you Ma. I love you. I want to thank you for all that you did for us," says Cecelia Wilson, 18, as she bids farewell to the family's foster mother in Guinea, Ester Nimley.
Cecelia then turns her head to the wall to hide her tears.
The painful separation this month at the Laine refugee camp in Guinea was just the latest trauma for children whose short lives had already been turned upside down by conflict.
Although Liberia's war was declared over in August 2003, aid groups are still picking up the pieces of lives torn apart by one of West Africa's most brutal and long-lasting conflicts.
During the years of fighting, hundreds of thousands of people fled Liberia, most spilling into neighbouring Guinea, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. Now many are going home, but the return is not without its own share of pain.
"I will miss all the children. I do not have any child .... these children were of great comfort and help to me," says Nimley, wiping tears from her eyes with the edge of her dress.
"I hope we will one day meet in Liberia."
She had cared for the children since they arrived at her door after fleeing the war in Liberia 18 months ago.
Meanwhile across the border, just 90 km (56 miles) away, David Wilson has been fretting about the fate of his lost children.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has reunited 800 children with their parents in Liberia since the on-off civil war, which claimed around 250,000 lives, ended after rebels blasted their way into the capital Monrovia and former President Charles Taylor fled into exile.
The organisation is still working on 1,500 cases.
WALKING FROM WAR
In West Africa, the first sign of war is often the sight of a trickle of people carrying their most precious belongings on their heads and trudging down a road away from the gunfire.
Some people head off without even knowing who is fighting whom, or even how close the conflict is. The crackle of gunfire, however distant, is enough to scare people who know they matter little to the men, women and children with the guns.
As bullets zing and mortars thud, families often get separated as they scramble into the bush, hoping to stay off the roads and avoid the bad guys -- whoever they are.
Cecelia and her siblings are among the lucky ones.
They fled across an iron bridge into Guinea in July 2003 as the main rebel group launched what would be its final bloody assault on Monrovia. They ended up at the Laine camp, some 80 km (50 miles) from the Guinean town of N'Zerekore.
On their way home they cross the same bridge.
"When the rebels were shooting, me and my two brothers and sister ran here," says Cecelia, who had her hair plaited for the big day.
Just down the road, the children drive into the town of Ganta, where their father is waiting for them, dressed in a blue coat and black trousers. They jump from the car, run to him and he hugs each child in turn.
"I am just happy to see them. They are my children and I just do not know what to say. I thank God very, very much for this," says David.
"Also I am grateful to the ICRC for reuniting my children with me. I will never forget what they have done for me."
UNCERTAIN FUTURE
In December, the ICRC launched a campaign called "Help us come home" aimed at finding the families of hundreds of Liberian children still scattered across West Africa.
Posters and booklets with pictures of the children were displayed in markets, shops and hospitals across Monrovia. Faces of lost children stared out from the shell-marked city's walls.
It's not always a fairytale ending. Red Cross workers say that sometimes children do not recognise their parents when they see them again -- sometimes because of illness during the war.
Their future is also uncertain in a country where most people have no electricity or running water and where thousands of young fighters are looking for jobs. Liberia is also under U.N. sanctions banning timber and diamond exports.
Elections are due to be held in October to choose a new president and parliament. But analysts warn that without a long-term commitment to peace building the risk of war remains -- especially in a region where guns and gunmen are easy to find.
David Wilson knows it will be difficult.
"I am a volunteer worker and do not have a job, but by the grace of God, he will give us food for me and my children," he says, looking up at the sky.
