While a tentative peace accord appears to be taking hold, for hundreds of children and child soldiers in Sierra Leone, the 10-year civil war has left scars that can only be healed with the help of International Medical Corps’ plastic surgery program.
Over the course of what was considered to be one of the bloodiest civil wars in recent times, hundreds of children between the ages of 9-17 were kidnapped, drugged, abused and forced to harm their fellow countrymen. By branding them with hot pokers or carving their initials in their chests, arms or foreheads with broken glass, the R.U.F. created an army of outcasts who can’t go home to face the families and communities they were often forced to murder.
“Without plastic surgery, these child victims might never be able to return to their communities and reintegrate into society,” said International Medical Corps President and CEO, Nancy Aossey. “We cannot let them continue to suffer.”
The torment of the scars is so great that some children have tried to burn them off with caustic soda, which only makes them worse.
“In the eyes of their family members, these kids symbolize the atrocities committed by the rebels. Their families fear being associated with them,” said Rabih Torbay, International Medical Corps’ West Africa regional director. “The brands are like shackles that isolate the children and serve as constant reminders of the brutality of war.”
International Medical Corps’ medical teams will perform one to two skin grafts as needed on each patient, working side-by-side with Sierra Leonean doctors and operating theater nurses to train them in pre and post operative care, anesthesiology and plastic surgery techniques.
Funded with a USAID grant from the Patrick J. Leahy War Victims Fund, administered by UNICEF, the program will initially help more than 120 children, with hundreds more expected to come forward. COOPI, a UNICEF-supported child protection agency will provide counseling to children before and after the surgery in an attempt to help them cope with their trauma and rejoin their families.
During the 10-year civil war rebels terrorized thousands of civilians by amputating limbs, raping women and girls, and destroying villages. International Medical Corps’ skin graft program will help heal both the physical and psychological scars suffered by the child soldiers.