Transcending torture

"What we should do is to learn to forgive those who have done this act.
If we do not learn to forgive the war, it will continue to the next generation.” --TAMBA SAIDU

The decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone became an international emblem for barbarism. Women were raped, children were maimed and killed, and teenage rebels often left their vicious mark by dismembering their victims. As fighting continues in the West Africa region, including new conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone refugees -- some 90,000 of them -- are beginning to head home. John Kaplan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and University of Florida associate journalism professor, traveled to the region last year and photographed many Sierra Leone refugees and recorded their stories. What follows is a visual and written record of people who are attempting to rebuild lives ruined at the hands of rebel oppressors. The images are not easy ones to view, but their stories speak to a remarkable strength of human spirit.

Also see Survivors of torture (3/2/02)

Photographs
by John Kaplan