The day the LURD rebels came, I was hiding in the heavy bush with my mother and my sisters. The rebels came and put us under gunpoint. It was around 10 in the morning. I was just 13 years old, going to 14. It was my first time to see arms. After I started fighting, I became the communicator for the whole base. I learned from my commander, "Sea Never Dry". I was chosen because I was so active, ready. I was very fast in learning it. In one week's time I learned code numbers and code words. The day I got wounded, we were surrounded by government troops. They shot a rocket into the car and the rocket came directly to me and hit me on the head. People said I could not survive. When I went to the hospital, I was just helpless. I used to ask, "Why should God do this to me. Why can't you kill me once and for all?" I cried a lot. After I was going under all these struggles, I thought I could do nothing in life now. So I decided to just be in the ghetto, smoke, drink, just sit down for the whole day. We were about 15 disabled living together. It was very wrong for force people to fight with them. Everyone has human rights. So you can't violate someone's rights to use someone just because you have the power to do it. Some of the former commanders, I don't really keep grudge for them because they don't have anything either. Some have become armed robbers in the street. Some are drug takers. For me, I would guess it is not like God love us more than others who have died; it is the method of God to bring us together. To love each other. Sometime you look in mirror you see yourself. Sometime I ask why I am living why god spare my life. When I look at my photo I think I am just in dream I cant believe I am alive.
- Akoi Mawolo |
I was twelve when I started fighting. I was even much younger when the entire revolution started. Early 2000, we were attacked and my father was killed. Government troops. When I wanted to cry they said they would shoot me. They said we should carry all our belongings to the town, but on our way going, I ran away with different people and my mother ran another direction. That in fact was the last day I ever saw her. They take me to the training base. The training was very hard and there was no food. So many times we went to communities to take away food from people. My first time to ever fire arms was on an attack at three o'clock in the morning. We were ten child soldiers. I was supplied with arms, AK 47. Six persons died. Three persons got wounded because we did not know about guns so we were so afraid. After that the fearness and sympathetic mind were gone. In then end when I was called to disarm, I felt very much tormented and hopeless about myself. When the gun was taken away from me, I became very hysterical. Now I want to tell my friends out there that they can change and contribute to society. I want to extend my apology to all of our people for everything we did, it was out of ignorance. Every human being on earth, you've got to forgive your fellow human beings.
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I was 13 years old when the revolution started. My mother and father were killed in my presence simply because my father was a mechanic working with a Mandingo man. They shot my mother because she was told not to cry when they were killing my father. After they grabbed me and carried me on the base, we underwent three weeks training. I was a small soldier. At that time arms was the only thing in life. I slaughtered people who were captured. There were other times I did good. We captured a woman who was not too sound. She had a newborn baby, just two weeks old. I talked to my commander and said, "No, when you kill this woman the baby is going to suffer." So he listened to me and we sent her to her people. When there is peace, your future has been protected. I want to see myself doing peace jobs, to be a peacemaker, in Liberia or in other countries.
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I was 8 years old when the war started in Voinjama in February, 1999. Thank God that I was not involved into the war, but I felt bad because the war drove me from school, from my home and carry me into refugee life. We slept in the bush without shelter where children were harmed by snakes. Some were trembling because of the power of the spirits. After some months the UN came and carried us to Diaro camp where we were given foods and ingredients. We were informed that some rebel factions had planned to come for more soldiers in the camp so the UN had to remove us to a far distance from the border. We were placed in a shelter that had been built with tarpaulin. We had to hang on to the shelter when it was time for the wind because the area was full of so many grasses and not enough trees to stop the wind while blowing. I gathered wood, polished shoes, wove chicken baskets for work to get money to go to school. Now I need more education because if I am well educated I will share more with the others. This is my advice to my brothers and sisters around the world for those that are involved into fighting war. I will like to tell them to avoid fighting war because it don't help the nation but destroy the nation. And the nation needs peace and reconciliation.
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In 1999, at the beginning of the war, I saw that other people were getting things for themselves, I left the house. I didn't tell my mother where I was going. At this time, I thought that being a fighter was the means of making life easy. When I was at the front for the first time in, I was not to myself due to the heavy gunfire. I started to cry. My commander gave me drugs to smoke and I felt almost crazy because it was my first time. I became a real killing machine. You cannot punish people like my commander now because he has already done it. It cannot be undone. Really I cannot say that he should be punished because I am not punished. I am being forgiven, so he should be forgiven. I was too stupid and innocent to have fought and kill people. Have this benefited me? I want to go to school and be a journalist so as to contribute to the development of my country, which we all destroyed. My message to my fellow youth all around the world, especially in war torn countries like Sudan, Somalia, that Please do not allow yourself to be used as a child soldier. Parents, please protect us from war. Do not allow your children to fight war. No one can convince me to go and fight war again because I have known myself to be a peacebuilder. You will not know a man without his telling his story to you.
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During the war, me and my parents were not together. They were in the bush and they sent me for rice in the town. I was not with them when the soldiers came. In the bush I was by myself. When I see groups going I would follow them. One day Government troops came and held me in the bush. I was fourteen. I was raped by one of the men. I decided to have a boyfriend to protect me because of what they did to me. I was pregnant from him. They told me that my mother and father had died. Later I found out that it was not true. Later, when my mother saw me, she started shedding tears. They told her I was killed in the war, too. She was surprised. I told her, I said, I'm not feeling fine. Something happened to me, I'm not to myself. She carried me to the hospital. We went to the doctor and she said I was six months pregnant. I would see my friends going to school and I was home. I would start crying. But my mother talked to me. Do not despair, you can still learn. I told her, I said, Yes, I can still go back to learn for my future. I am in fifth grade now. I believe anyone can straighten out. I believe anyone can straighten out. I like to write.
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We were just about to dress and go to school when the attack began. Before the LURD rebels captured me there was a govt troop fighter named Dust to Dust. He took me from my parents. They were all pointing barrels at me. They said if I make an attempt to run, they're going to shoot me. After we graduated from the base, my first day of holding arms I felt bad about my life. I thought of what my grandmother told me, that I should not involve myself into fighting war. I began to wonder, "How can men use the child as killing machines to kill his brother and sister?" After the war I experienced that people were pointing fingers at me telling each that I was doing bad things during the war. For this reason I was rejected in the communities. Even when I go to school my classmates did not want to see me. I was lonely in class. Now I can see that I am getting into a new life and hope for my future. I did not know if I was a good singer, a good football player and also I did not know that I was good in school, but now I can notice all of these things.
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