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Subscribe to RSSA U.N.-backed court on Thursday convicted ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor of war crimes during the conflict in Sierra Leone, making him the first former head of state to be found guilty by an international tribunal.
In advance of the ruling, Reuters photographer Finbarr O'Reilly traveled around Sierra Leone to examine the legacy of the 1991-2002 war, which left over 50,000 people dead and became a byword for gratuitous violence, especially the amputation of limbs.
A decade later, the West African nation is peaceful, but remains among the world's poorest. It is due to hold elections in November.
Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters
A woman uses a net to catch fish in a pool of water near the city of Makeni in Sierra Leone on April 20, 2012.
Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters
Komba Nyanku, left, 12, who wants to become a lawyer, and his friend, Abdoulaye Marrah, 12, who dreams of being a pilot, pose for a portrait in the town of Koidu on April 21, 2012. Neither of the boys has the money to pay school fees.
Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters
Kadiatu Kauma, 24, sits in a hospital with gunshot wounds to her arm, stomach and back after police opened fire on a crowd of protestors in the mining town of Bumbuna on April 19, 2012. A woman was shot and killed and several others were wounded when police opened fire on a crowd protesting wages and working conditions at the British mining company African Minerals, according to witnesses, hospital staff and police officials.
Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters
A headstone marks a mass grave of rebel victims in the village of Bomaru, where the conflict started in 1991, on April 22, 2012.
Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters
Guests attend a wedding in Koidu on April 21, 2012.
Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters
A worker carries charcoal through a slashed and burned area in eastern Sierra Leone, April 20, 2012. Logging is illegal in Sierra Leone, but remains the leading cause of environmental degradation, according to the European Union. Population pressure, common slash and burn methods and illegal logging mean the country's bountiful forests could disappear by 2018, according to the Forestry Ministry.
Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters
The remote border post between Liberia and Sierra Leone, where fighters from Liberia entered on March 23, 1991 and triggered the start of the civil war, is seen in the village of Bomaru, eastern Sierra Leone, on April 22, 2012.
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This was another terrible tragedy of our times! How brutal can some people get? Take a lesson from this country's history. No one should ever have to suffer such brutalities!
The saddest part is it happens for the World to see and nothing is done. In an age when information is instantaneous ....but ignored. The United Nations picks and chooses their battles in relation to money and the plight human beings is secondary. I am sometimes sickened by the world we live in....but hold faith that their is enough good to overpower the evil. One can only hope....
Is this the obama family album or what?
that's pretty racist, unnecessary, and most of all irrelevant.
you sound so ignorant.
Maybe if you read about the horrible brutality that went on, and still going on, you wouldn't make ridiculous jokes..
Liz..... try not to get sucked into that nonsense. That's the reaction stupid Eric was looking for .
US foreign policy continues to keep Africa at arms length. (One of our smarter moves!) During the Clinton years I spent time in Rwanda and witnessed these atrocities first hand. Our mission and standing orders were to observe and report. We carried weapons to protect ourselves but were strickly forbidden from interfering in what was considered a civil war. That was in 94 and now almost 20 years later little has changed.
The last thing the Powers that be want is another challenger for international GDP...Every new market that expands takes just a little more power away from the established hierarchy. They want to control new growth and population growth and allowing genocide in Africa suits them.
Money and Greed are in control of this world and until that changes, things like sierra leone will continue to pop up here and there and the sad thing is, they will at times be encouraged and even fomented by the Powers that Be.
And the world for the most part turns a blind eye so long as it does not affect them personally.....
We are so desensitized to violence through media, movies and TV that we turn off the emotional response easier than flicking out the lights.....:(