A Mother's Saga: an Account of the Rebel War in Sierra Leone

In March 1991, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels waged a ruthless war on Sierra Leone, which was to last for a decade characterized by the worst forms of crimes against humanity. A single mother took a dreadful journey in a heroic effort to protect her terrified family from the trigger-happy and machete-swinging rebels across bloodbath diamond fields, intolerable savanna-grasslands, iniquitous rain forests and a petrified city in Sierra Leone. She spent days and nights in these treacherous savanna-grasslands and jungle-forests--walked hundreds of miles, narrowly dodged rebel advances, survived on wild fruits, traveled in cargo trucks and over-capacitated boats. At the climax, she woke-up one night under rebel AK-47 assault rifles and watched helplessly rebels abducted her children in this line-for-line titillating narrative. But she overcome the odds, made it to the United States and recounted her sufferings that is independent of politics and the mass media during this miserable decade in the history of Sierra Leone.