.....
.....My Encounters in War
by Jolly Bobson Bobby King, age 16, iEARN-Sierra Leone
My name is Jolly Bobson Bobby King. I am 16 years old. I was born in Liberia but a Sierra Leonean by origin or decent.
I grew up in Liberia as a good boy but later when I became 5 years, when the war in Liberia began , my good life changed into strugle , bitterness and later became war-like in nature.
The war met me in Gardeners View Estate in 1999. In this first attack my uncle and my grandffather were captured by the rebels and carrie for months whiles we were pressed to death by starvation. My grandfather was threatened to be killed but was later seen with my uncle alive . After their release from the rebels with much struggle and suffering during the first war , we managed life after schooling was stopped for a long time . Also in 1993, the second war came as I was about 7 years with all my smaller brothers and a bigger brother with my mum, dad, grandmother and grandfather . This second attack ,(1993) distabilized my whole family. My grand father who was earlier on captured was killed together with my grandmother by bomb shell that came from the ECOMOG(Economic Community Monitoring Group) -of West Africa.These soldiers were trying to free the civilians from carnage and mayhem.
This was the first time I really felt what was to loose someone closer to me. I cried without limitation but was later consoled by my father and mother . Now our house is damaged and all we were thinking was revenge, killing and fighting as hunger pressed us closer to the grave. No school, no rest at one house and we kept moving from one place to another without money.This time we were between the devil and the deep blue sea.We can neither go further nor backwards but looking towards the salvation of our God. We were lucky to get an ECOMOG gun-boat that could take us straight to Freetown, Sierra Leone.
We had a full days journey to Freetown although in the crocrodiles mouth of another phase of war in Sierra Leone
