For 87 Children, a Miracle Escape

Maybe it was God’s grace, maybe just luck, but the arrival here Friday of 87 little souls piled in the back of a firewood truck was clearly the stuff of miracles.

The hungry children, some as young as 5, walked 52 miles over three days to escape the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF. The rebels had forced them to serve as soldiers, sex slaves and battlefield porters during Sierra Leone’s eight-year civil war, which ended with a peace accord last July. Fighting has flared anew in recent weeks.

A 15-year-old girl arrived with a baby on her back, the child of an RUF commander who had repeatedly raped the teenager over three years but now wanted nothing to do with her. Many of the children wore no shoes, their calloused feet swollen like oversized slippers. Most of their possessions--down to frayed toothbrushes--had been stolen along the way.

“I am happy-sad right now,” said Kelfa Kamara, a wistful-looking 16-year-old boy who had spent four years fighting for the RUF before sneaking away in March. “I am happy to be here, to be alive. I am sad because of my life.”

Guided by workers from the Roman Catholic charity Caritas, the 87 escapees spent nights hiding in the homes of good Samaritans, days sneaking silently through the thick jungle. On Thursday afternoon, when they were well into government-controlled territory, they crowded into an empty firewood truck to complete their 125-mile exodus by road.

More than 50 of their friends didn’t make it, having been rounded up by the RUF and sent back to the front in the days before the daring trek began early Tuesday in the rebel stronghold of Makeni, about 100 miles east of Freetown. Another youth was abducted along the way.

By some estimates, more than 1,400 children nationwide have been recruited--often forceably--back into military duty by both the RUF and pro-government forces since fighting resumed early this month.

“We didn’t think it could be possible” to pull off the escape, said an elated Father Luciano Peterlini, among a group of Catholic priests in Freetown who had been anxiously awaiting word of the carefully planned effort. “If anyone could do it, they could do it. Unfortunately, these children are used to surviving in the bush. They have had that training.”

Last weekend, the rebels arrived unannounced at the Caritas rehabilitation center for former child soldiers in Makeni, where the children had been living, some since February. The youngsters had turned themselves in under a demilitarization program established by the peace accord. The rebels dragged off 54 children, saying their services were once again in demand.

Some of the teenagers tried to defend the center with homemade weapons, setting alight small bottles of kerosene and tossing them at the soldiers. But they were no match for their captors, according to Edmund Koroma, who heads the center.

The raid made it clear to Caritas officials that the children were not safe in Makeni. The RUF had gone back on its word once before. On April 29, after long negotiations, the local commander gave the charitable group 48 hours to evacuate the children, said Ibrahim Andrew Sesay, director of Caritas in Makeni.

Planning, Waiting for the Great Escape

The officials managed to get 230 children resettled at the camp near Freetown before the RUF changed its mind. The next day, Sesay said, the rebels attacked U.N. peacekeepers in Makeni, taking hundreds of them hostage and ruining any chances of a cooperative departure.

Caritas officials spent the next few weeks planning an escape and waiting for the right moment. Typically, the rebels would spend their nights getting drunk, and by the early morning would fall asleep at their posts. The plan hinged on exploiting the small window of opportunity before sunrise.

On Tuesday, they set out just after 4 a.m. Led by 27 workers from the center, the children slid through the jungle in single file. They walked the first 10 miles without uttering a word for fear of waking the rebels. Koroma separated the adults into several groups, assigning each of them to watch a cluster of children. If the children lagged or grew weary, they were carried by the adults.

“They were good kids. They didn’t act badly,” said Kadiatu Lamin, one of several women from the center who helped with the escape.

When they reached the Rokel River, the adults took turns getting the smallest children across the shoulder-high waterway.

On the second day, just as confidence was riding high, they were ambushed in the jungle by a small group of rebels who robbed them and threatened to abduct 17 of the strongest boys.

Rebels Abduct Boy, Steal Valuables

The soldiers separated the girls and women from the others, and then separated the males by age. Everyone was searched, and anything of value taken.

Koroma lost the $150 he needed to rent a truck farther down the road. Even the spare clothes for the 9-month-old baby had to be surrendered. Boys were told to collect the booty and join the journey to the front. Those who refused to cooperate were warned that they would be shot.

“I was so afraid. I thought they were going to take me back,” said Fatmata Mansaray, the 15-year-old mother. “I gave them everything. I don’t want to go back there.”

The next 2 1/2 hours lasted an eternity.

Koroma pleaded for Fatmata, saying she was a child with a child and could be of no use to them. He also tried to save the 17 boys.

“We talked and we talked and we talked,” Koroma said. “I told them to look at the humanitarian side, that these are only children. I think they were really only interested in our money and property, but they needed someone to carry it.”

But who?

One of the soldiers recognized 15-year-old Roke Serry, a strong boy who had spent several years fighting for the RUF. In the end, the rebels decided that he would be good enough. They let the others move on, as Roke, fighting back tears, first protested but then surrendered in silence.

“He was saying, ‘No, no, no,’ but it was no use,” said Lamin, the center worker. “We told him, ‘You can come back. You will escape.’ He cried.

“It is a difficult job that we have, but we try our best.”

The journey had reached its lowest--and highest--points. They had faced the enemy and survived, but they had lost a 15-year-old friend.

“I was scared when I saw the RUF. I thought it was going to start all over again,” said Kelfa, who, in his four years with the RUF, lost count of how many people he had killed. “I want to go back to school. I want to be a doctor. I want to do something to help the nation.”

On Thursday night, Kelfa and the others reached the town of Mile 91. There, a truck driver who had just unloaded his cargo of firewood agreed to take them to Freetown on the promise of $300. They arrived at the city’s edge too late to beat the 11 p.m. curfew, so they spent the night on the roadside and finished the final leg Friday morning.

The children wolfed down 122 trays of rice and beans with their bare hands in a driveway behind a warehouse owned by the Catholic church on the industrial edge of this capital city. Later, they traveled by ferry to an emergency shelter near the airport just outside Freetown.

It was the escapees’ first real meal in two days--and the first time they didn’t have to look over their shoulders.

“We have more children at other centers, but these were at the greatest risk,” said Sesay. “Most of them have nowhere else to go because their parents are behind the rebel lines.”

Smiles splashed across many of the children’s uneasy faces when, after licking their fingers clean, they formed a circle on the driveway and began to sing.

“Mama and Papa, Mama and Papa,” went the refrain of the melody written by Koroma. “Stop the use of child soldiers.”

Koroma was smiling too, relieved to have completed a journey that could have gone wrong at any turn.

In Freetown, the government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah had just issued a statement promising not to recruit children younger than 18 and threatening “severe disciplinary action” against any army commander found with children in active combat areas.

Government officials--and all other parties in the civil war, except the RUF--already have signed a pledge to release all child soldiers. But Monique Nagelkerke, program manager in Freetown for Save the Children, said the agreement has been flouted by all sides since tensions began rising last month.

“This year, last year and last week, there are kids out there with guns,” Nagelkerke said.

But for now, at least, the miracle of Makeni has spared 87 little souls the hell that Roke--and hundreds of others--are still living.