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Sierra Leonean Refugee Children In Guinea July 1999 Sierra Leonean refugee children in Guinea are among the most vulnerable children in the world. They have lived through an extremely brutal war-most have witnessed or suffered unspeakable atrocities including widespread killing, mutilation, and sexual abuse. The human rights abuses that drove these children into flight are only the first chapter of hardship for many Sierra Leoneans affected by the crisis. Even after traveling across an international border to seek refuge in Guinea, they remain vulnerable to hazardous labor exploitation, physical abuse, denial of education, sexual violence and exploitation, cross-border attacks, militarization of refugee camps, and recruitment as child soldiers. Human Rights Watch visited Guinea in February and March 1999. In the refugee camps, they interviewed dozens of refugee teachers, social workers, and other community leaders as well as forty-nine refugee children: thirty-three girls and sixteen boys ranging in age from six to seventeen. This report relates the testimony of these children, whose names have been changed to protect their privacy. (A1105), 7/99, 55 pp., $7.00 Order Online Getting Away with Murder, Mutilation, Rape New Testimony from Sierra Leone July 1999 This sixty-page report documents how, as rebels took control of the city in January 1999, they made little distinction between civilian and military targets. Testimonies from victims and survivors describe numerous massacres of civilians gathered in houses, churches and mosques. One massacre in a mosque on January 22 resulted in the deaths of sixty-six people. A woman describes how she escaped from a burning house after rebels set her mother and daughter on fire. A child recounts how, from her hiding place, she watched rebels execute seventeen of her family and friends. The report also includes testimonies from girls and women who describe how they were systematically rounded up by the rebels, brought to rebel command centers and then subjected to individual and gang-rape. Young girls under seventeen, and particularly those deemed to be virgins, were specifically targeted, and hundreds of them were later abducted by the rebels. Human Rights Watch documents how entire families were gunned down in the street, children and adults had their limbs hacked off with machetes, and girls and young women were taken to rebel bases and sexually abused. (A1103), 6/99, 56pp., $7.00 Order Online Sowing Terror Atrocities Against Civilians In Sierra Leone August 1998 Since losing political power in February 1998, members of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) have been engaging in a war of terror against civilians in Sierra Leone. With no recognizable political platform, the AFRC/RUF rebel alliance is committing widespread and egregious atrocities against unarmed civilians in an attempt to regain power. As the violence in Sierra Leone continues, grave abuses continue to take place. Human Rights Watch interviewed civilian men, women, and children who had been intentionally mutilated or shot as recently as June 12, 1998 in eastern Sierra Leone. Many thousands of Sierra Leonean civilians have been raped; deliberately mutilated, often by amputation; or killed outright in a campaign by the AFRC/RUF between February and June 1998 alone. Men, women and children, probably numbering in the thousands, have been abducted by the AFRC/RUF for use as combatants, forced laborers, or sexual slaves. Women have been actively targeted through sexual violence, including rape and sexual slavery. Children have been targets of killings and violence and are forcibly recruited as soldiers. In addition to various forms of physical abuse, innumerable Sierra Leoneans suffer from psychological trauma due to intentionally cruel methods of inflicting harm against these individuals and their communities. Order Online |
