Recounting the ravages of a brutal war

Perched comfortably on a chair in the SAC, Sierra Leonean sophomore Mariama Sandy recounts a time when the simple act of lounging was too dangerous. "[My family] couldn't sit in the living room like we used to," she says. "We were advised to sit on the floor so we wouldn't get shot."

Since 1991, Sierra Leone has witnessed an intense civil war between the government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), compelling many citizens to flee their country. According to ESOL Resource Teacher Joseph Bellino, Blair is home to 18 students from Sierra Leone, many of whom have escaped from the warring nation in recent years.

Warfare in Sierra Leone has led to the death of more than 70,000 people and the displacement of two million others—well over one-third of the country's population, according to the Institute for Security Studies.

Cruel crusades

In 1996 the RUF, a rebel group fighting to control the country's rich diamond fields, overthrew the democratically elected government in Freetown, the Sierra Leonean capital.

Senior Fatima Alami, who was living there at the time, recalls hearing that the RUF had seized control. "We turned the radio on and [the rebels] announced that they had taken over the country and were going to tell us who the new president was," she says.

With the RUF in power, the citizens of Sierra Leone lived under a strict curfew, and schools and colleges closed. "We didn't have our rights," Alami says simply.

When fighting intensified, civilians were forced to remain inside for safety. As bombs dropped, destroying buildings in Freetown, Alami's family huddled in their basement.

Nine months after the RUF took power, the Economic Community Cease-fire Monitoring Group, a West-African peacekeeping force, intervened, and Alami and her friends were able to return to school.

But the RUF and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) joined in 1998 and struck many towns and villages throughout Sierra Leone. A year later, they attacked Freetown from the east, putting Alami's home right in the path of the rebels. Her family retreated to Gambia but returned to Sierra Leone in 2000, when they thought the fighting had settled down.

That same year, the RUF shattered a delicate peace process when it kidnapped 500 peacekeepers, prompting the United Nations to impose embargos on diamond exports from Sierra Leone and plunging the country back into war.

Terror tactics

The RUF has gone beyond bullets and battles, resorting to a campaign of pure terror that includes raping, murdering, mutilating and abducting thousands of women and children.

Junior Hannah Foday, who came to the U.S. in March 2000, recalls the atrocities her family members experienced. "My cousin got raped by the rebels, and my five-year-old cousin got killed," Foday says. "She was shot."

Bellino, who lived in Sierra Leone from 1967 to 1970, says many ESOL students come from "places where violence was much more vivid [than in the U.S.], places where their relatives were murdered or raped."

World of difference

Even when they are in the U.S., students such as Sandy and Foday feel the effects of war in their native country. Bellino noticed a change in some Sierra Leonean students who were already in the U.S. when later outbreaks of fighting occurred. "[They] were very quiet, very withdrawn. They almost seemed afraid," he says.

Besides leaving behind a warring country, many of Blair's Sierra Leonean students also had to face the tough transition to America. "I couldn't speak your language, so it was difficult. I couldn't make friends here," Foday says in accented but clear English, before turning and laughing at a joke with her Sierra Leonean friends.

Although Foday has now found a community within Blair, Sept 11 stirred up haunting memories of conflict she thought she'd left behind. "I ran from war," she says, "and then I found it here."

Alami is glad to have escaped the civil war but still longs for her country and hopes for peace. "I miss Sierra Leone, and I'm a little happy and sad to be in America," she says.