A House with Two Rooms - The Advocates for Human Rights

helped me and paid for everything. 66
Not everyone was fortunate enough to have a neighbor who could provide assistance. Those who
were disabled or otherwise vulnerable often had to be left behind. One statement giver told the TRC
about leaving behind her stepmother and others who could not walk in Lofa County in 1993:
The people in the town who could leave, and were physically capable of
leaving, decided that they had to flee because the rebels were coming. The
people in the town who could travel decided to put all of the people that
couldn’t make the journey to Guinea, 230 old and disabled peasants, in a
village together. We hoped that the rebels would respect the fact that the
people in the town were handicapped and defenseless and pass it by.
The rebels killed everyone in the town, including my stepmother and brother
(they both had had leg problems), [except for] one person who managed to
survive. The survivor told me that the rebels put my brother in a house and
set it on fire, and that they had beheaded my stepmother. 67
Safety along the travel routes also was a critical concern. One witness in the U.S. public hearings told
the TRC that he became responsible for leading his siblings out of Liberia during the war, although
he was only a young teenager at the time. He told the TRC:
I would walk ahead of the group of my siblings. And when I walked ahead, I
would make sure there ain’t no rebel ahead of us. Then I would come back,
and then I would walk with my siblings. So every time, I will do that…[a]
mile and a half I would walk and then walk back, and make sure for their
own safety…At one point, I kind of walk[ed] ahead, and then when I came
back, my siblings weren’t there. 68
This young man tried for a full day to find his siblings, but without success, and then was forced to go
on alone to the Sierra Leone border. 69
The Checkpoint Experience
Trying to survive the maze of checkpoints established all over the country by warring factions was
another virtually universal experience. 70 Describing checkpoints on the road between Monrovia and
the city of Buchanan, one statement giver said, “if it was here [in the United States], it would be like
walking five blocks and a checkpoint. Two blocks and a checkpoint.” 71
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