Introduction
You often struggle to comprehend how an ordinary child endures unimaginable violence and builds a meaningful life afterward. You want to understand the human cost of modern warfare and the resilience required to survive displacement. This book recounts the harrowing journey of Mariatu Kamara through the Sierra Leone civil war, hospital recovery, and ultimate resettlement in Canada. You will examine the stark reality of rural childhood interrupted by rebel terror, the brutal amputation of her hands, and the long road to healing through motherhood and global advocacy.
- How do children survive extreme wartime atrocities?
- What happens to victims in post-war displacement camps?
- How does a survivor transform profound trauma into a powerful voice for change?
1. Childhood and Village Life
Children in rural Sierra Leone grew up in close-knit agrarian communities without formal schooling, sustained by strong family bonds and traditional beliefs.
A rural upbringing placed daily labor far above formal education.
Mariatu lived with her aunt and uncle from infancy in Magborou, a village of about 200 people. Children were expected to contribute to farming chores instead of attending school, while adults cooperated on building maintenance and cooking.
Magborou consisted of just eight houses. Mariatu was raised by her father's sister Marie and husband Alie, whom she called Ya and Pa as terms of endearment, while her birth parents lived in another village.
Village Routines
Life revolved around basic survival and agricultural tasks. You spent your days working the land, harvesting cassava, and preparing meals together.
Omens of War
Traditional beliefs in Sierra Leone often linked dreams of specific items, such as palm oil, directly to impending violence or bloodshed. Local superstitions held that dreaming of palm oil predicted that blood would spill before the end of the day, a belief reinforced by personal experiences of minor cuts and ultimately by the outbreak of rebel violence.
On the first night in Manarma, Mariatu dreamt of standing in a pit of palm oil and a water drum turning into a head coated in oil, which immediately preceded the rebel invasion.
2. The Civil War Arrives
More than a hundred rebels arrived to join the attack on Manarma. They burned down villages, looted possessions, and executed civilians publicly.
Rebel forces utilized extreme brutality, destruction, and terror tactics, including child soldiers, to conquer villages and force compliance.
Rebels blockaded homes with people inside to set them on fire. They forced witnesses to express approval to save their own lives.
Rebels set fire to a house containing about 20 people. They chopped off the head of a fleeing woman, and murdered Salieu and a pregnant woman in front of Mariatu.
Survival Tactics
Villagers passed down survival strategies based on rumors. You learned to agree with the rebels and tell them what they wanted to hear to avoid immediate execution.
To survive extreme captivity and threats from brutal captors, you learned to feign compliance or hide your identity.
Following advice she had heard from Marie about rebel behavior, Mariatu told a rebel she liked the executions she witnessed so she would not be killed on the spot.
The Amputation
Captives had their hands severed with machetes by young soldiers. The rebels instructed them to take their mutilated arms to the president and ask for new hands so they could no longer vote.
Rebels performed deliberate amputations on civilian captives as a political terror message directed against the government and the electoral process.
After being accused of being soldiers or potential voters, Mariatu had both of her hands chopped off over a boulder by young rebel boys.
It took two attempts for the boy to cut off Mariatu's right hand. It took three attempts to cut off her left hand.
3. Survival and Hospital Recovery
Surviving amputees navigated dangerous wilderness escapes only to face profound trauma, unwanted pregnancy, and difficult hospital conditions.
Escape into the Bush
Severely injured survivors managed to escape into the dense African bush. You rely on instinct, water sources, and mental resolve to stay alive in such terrifying conditions.
Despite heavy blood loss, pain, and psychological shock, victims traversed dangerous wilderness paths. You avoid wildlife encounters and seek out abandoned farms and roads leading toward medical help.
After her hands were amputated, Mariatu managed to stand and walk through the bush to a pond for water. She encountered black cobras she perceived as guardian spirits, and eventually found a traveler who pointed her toward Port Loko.
Villagers terrified of rebel tactics often suspected unaccompanied young girls of acting as dangerous decoys. Rebels frequently sent injured girls into villages to feign injury so unsuspecting residents would help them.
Mariatu arrived exhausted at a village and was accused by an older woman of scouting for the rebels before the women finally washed her wounds and helped her reach Port Loko.
Hospital Life and Trauma
Amputee children reunited in hospitals and found solidarity through shared trauma and survival. Children who lost their hands in the war gathered in medical wards where they learned to adapt and share their grief.
In the hospital, Mariatu unexpectedly found Ibrahim and Mohamed, who had also had their hands cut off by the rebels. She later reunited with her cousin Adamsay.
Mariatu discovered she was pregnant in the hospital, realizing the child was the result of a rape by Salieu. Abibatu noticed Mariatu's swollen breasts and irregular period, prompting doctors to run tests that revealed the pregnancy.
Overwhelmed by trauma, disability, and unwanted pregnancy, Mariatu repeatedly contemplated and attempted suicide. Believing she had no future and unable to care for a child without hands, she tried to end her life.
Mariatu tried to open a bottle of blue pain pills to end her life and her baby's life. Abibatu knocked the bottle from her grasp before she could swallow the pills.
4. Life in the Amputee Camp
Displaced villagers faced severe poverty and starvation after fleeing to Freetown. The Aberdeen Amputee Camp held about 400 amputees and their relatives in tents divided by canvas doors.
Displaced amputees survived in squalid camps by begging on the streets and participating in traditional cultural ceremonies.
Camp residents survived on meager food rations like bulgur and cornmeal while fearing rebel attacks. The camp residents received monthly shipments of flour and lived in constant anxiety after receiving threatening letters from rebels.
Street Begging
Because adults struggled to find work, amputee children became the primary breadwinners for their displaced families through street begging. Citizens felt extra sympathy for amputee children, making them more successful at gathering coins.
Mariatu, Adamsay, Mohamed, and Ibrahim regularly begged on the streets and outside the mosque. They made 10,000 leones, about three dollars, on a good day of begging. A sympathetic woman once gave them 25,000 leones in a single day. They traveled around the city using poda-poda public transport vehicles.
Cultural Traditions
Traditional practices continued inside the camp despite the displacement and trauma of war. The Bondo Secret Society initiation served as a mandatory cultural rite of passage for young girls in Sierra Leone. This traditional practice involved seclusion in the bush, instructions in homemaking and curing illnesses, and female genital cutting, which was required for women before marriage.
Fatmata underwent a quick Bondo initiation ceremony at the camp so she would be qualified to marry Abdul. Initiates followed specific steps during the ritual:
- wash thoroughly with a bar of white soap;
- paint faces and bodies in white chalky paint to symbolize purity;
- stay in a designated hut in the bush and learn homemaking, cooking, and herbal remedies.
Camp elders acted as digba leaders overseeing the karukuh initiation huts.
5. Motherhood, Art, and Advocacy
Labor starts early with extreme pain, and when you fail to dilate, the camp nurse sends you to the maternity hospital. A female doctor performs a C-section, leaving you with a gaping scar that triggers severe depression and a failed suicide attempt in the washroom.
Through the tragic loss of her son, participation in a theater troupe, and international media exposure, Mariatu began her path toward healing.
Loss of Abdul
Musa tracks Mariatu down at the Aberdeen camp after hearing that four cousins from Magborou suffered amputations. He expresses his love and asks you to name the baby Musa and marry him, but you push him away and urge him to find a normal girl.
Musa visits Mariatu three times just as the sun sets after she returns from begging, but you refuse to talk to him and leave him by the fire with your cousins.
At about ten months old, Abdul develops a swollen stomach, puffy face, and severe distortion due to malnutrition. Father Maurizio helps secure money from an Italian donor for a blood transfusion at the hospital, but Abdul's almost-weightless body eventually stops breathing.
Plagued by the belief that you killed Abdul because you did not love him enough, you dream of Salieu sitting with a healthy Abdul on his lap. Salieu tells Mariatu in her dream not to blame herself for Abdul's death, showing her a smiling Abdul with his two newly emerged bottom teeth.
The Theater Troupe
A social worker named Comfort informs you that a man from Canada named Bill wants to help after seeing your photograph with Abdul in a newspaper article. Bill calls Comfort's office to speak through her, promising to mail money and a box of clothes.
Comfort brings Mariatu to her fourth-floor office in an office building to listen to Bill's voice over the telephone.
You undergo an HIV test out of fear and receive a negative result, reinforcing your resolve to live a positive life. Mariatu waits on pins and needles for weeks before a nurse on an examination table tells her she tested negative for HIV/AIDS.
Joining a theater troupe composed of war amputees helps you express your pain and recover from your grief. Mariatu is persuaded by her friend Mariatu to join Victor's troupe, where she overcomes her stage fright and performs in skits warning about HIV/AIDS.
Victor arranges for the troupe to perform their skits, dances, and songs at Brookfields Stadium, Freetown's largest venue, in front of about a thousand people. Mariatu wears an orange Africana outfit and a skirt made from cut rice bags, overcoming her stage fright when pushed onstage by her friend Mariatu.
6. Resettlement and New Beginnings
Moving to Canada required navigating strict visa bureaucracy, rejecting cumbersome prosthetics, and mastering a new language and education.
When Mariatu needed to apply for a birth certificate and passport to travel to England, she realized she did not know her birth date. With the help of a government official and social worker Yabom, they estimated her birth month as May because of rain stories and chose her favorite number twenty-five, establishing May 25, 1986, as her official birth date. Mariatu used her big toe dipped in blue ink to leave a footprint signature on official government documents because she could not write and had lost her hands.
Because Canada lacked a diplomatic office inside post-war Freetown, Mariatu had to travel across the border to Guinea with Comfort to complete her official visa paperwork before she could fly to North America.
Journey to the West
In London, Mariatu was fitted with heavy metal and later plastic prosthetic devices designed to help her use artificial fingers. However, she found them too bulky, painful, and restrictive, realizing she had already developed superior proficiency using her remaining arms and teeth for daily tasks. Mariatu abandoned her metal and plastic prosthetic hands in London because she could tie her shoes, do up zippers, and eat much faster using her bare arms and adapted utensils.
Upon landing at Toronto's Pearson International Airport after a nineteen-hour journey, Mariatu was immediately greeted by flashing cameras from journalists fascinated by her story before meeting her sponsor family. Bill, his wife Shelley, and their son Richard welcomed Mariatu at the airport, where Bill gave her a gold chain with a charm as her first piece of jewelry.
Adapting to Canada
Sierra Leonean expatriates living in London and Toronto, such as Mariama, David, Kadi, and Abou Nabe, actively organized housing, raised medical funds, and hosted cultural gatherings to help newly arrived immigrants cope with displacement. Kadi and Abou Nabe hosted a traditional backyard barbecue in Toronto complete with Sierra Leonean dishes and familiar wood carvings to help Mariatu feel at home.
Mariatu initially avoids school out of fear and insecurity about her disability and lack of prior education. However, encouraged and firmly guided by her guardian Kadi, she enrolls in an ESL course, masters basic reading through children's books, and eventually graduates to high school. Kadi takes Mariatu to a local library filled with children's books like Baby Sister Says No! and The Sneetches to help her start reading at the beginning.
You can follow similar steps to master unfamiliar tasks:
- Read children's books to start learning a new language from the beginning.
- Write Kadi's instructions and bus routes on a blank piece of paper to navigate the city independently.
- Show the paper to the bus driver when boarding to ensure correct transportation.
Upon entering high school, Mariatu is assigned a personal tutor to help with math, English, and biology. Later, she receives a specialized laptop from the War Amps of Canada featuring a large ball mouse designed for individuals without hands, enabling her to type and connect with the world via the internet. Mariatu uses her new laptop to eventually contact Bill and Shelley, and learns about the tragic death of Richard, who originally advocated for bringing her to Canada.
10 Key Ideas
- Mariatu Kamara's rural childhood in Sierra Leone was upended by the outbreak of brutal civil war violence.
- Rebel forces utilized extreme terror tactics and deliberate amputations against civilians to send a political message to the government.
- Severely injured survivors endured dangerous wilderness escapes and faced profound trauma, unwanted pregnancy, and difficult hospital conditions.
- Displaced amputees survived in squalid camps by relying on street begging and traditional cultural ceremonies.
- Through the tragic loss of her infant son Abdul, participation in a war amputee theater troupe, and international media exposure, Mariatu began her path toward healing.
- Moving to Canada required navigating strict visa bureaucracy, rejecting cumbersome prosthetics in favor of natural adaptation, and mastering a new language and education.
- Mariatu transformed her profound wartime trauma and personal hardships into a powerful global voice for change by speaking out against silence.
- The rejection of heavy metal and plastic prosthetics allowed Mariatu to regain her independence using her bare arms and teeth.
- Coping with the pain of losing her child to malnutrition tested Mariatu's resilience before she found solace through art and advocacy.
- The importance of speaking out against silence ultimately enabled Mariatu to transcend her status as a victim of war and become an empowered global advocate.