Sierra Leone – “Perdonare”

Saidu: “I was a boy, 9 years old. I lived with my family. The rebels attacked my village. They took me to the barracks; I was trained to fight as a child soldier during the war.”

Sisco: “I don’t remember my age. I was very little. They killed my mother, killed my father, and gave me a lot of drugs. I had to kill a lot of people.”

Saidu: “Killing, burning houses; I was dragged and forced to do it. If you didn’t do it, you were killed. This is war.”

Sierra Leone’s ten year long civil war from 1991–2002 was one of the bloodiest in modern history: fifty thousand people dead and half a million displaced in a nation of four million inhabitants. The cruelty was unsurpassed and among the civilians who suffered the most were the children: those against whom violence was perpetrated and those who perpetrated the violence. It is estimated that thirty percent of soldiers were less than fifteen years of age. Fr. Maurizio Boa C.S.I., stayed with the population throughout the war. His task today is healing those who committed horrific crimes. “Soldier boys, child soldiers, represented the other side of the coin. Their killing prowess: burning people alive in locked cars, everything… But they were victims before becoming executioners … boys who wanted to play, if only allowed to do so, keen to laugh, and not to kill. Yet someone taught them how to lead wars and play the killing game.”