Liberia. A small country located on the coast of West Africa founded in 1822 as a
result of the American Colonization Society who brought freed slaves from
America to Africa.
The coup was followed by many violent and gruesome events and ultimately a 14
year long civil war that led to the country's destruction.
14 years later, Liberia is in a state of recovery. The trauma and pain Liberians went through
is unreal. Join us as we sit down with a few survivors
living in both Liberia and America. These are their stories.
My name is Mrs. Comfort Boyce.
I'm from the city of Bentol.
I work along with children because I love to take care of children.
My mother, most of the time she used to take care of other people's children.
We were six girls,
and one boy.
biological from our mother. But she had a lot of other children that she took care of and
we grew all loving each other.
Because of the coup,
we left Bentol
and we moved to Monrovia.
That is the
capital in Monrovia.
The coup took place in 1980.
And at that time they were looking for
the Tolbert family to get rid of them.
And my mother, being related to the Tolberts,
They arrested them.
When they arrested them, they put them in the trunk of a car.
And they took them away, and we began to pray.
There was an aunt of ours, and she lived at that time in Logan Town.
And I ran to her and all she told me she said "Comfort go
home. Your mother is back." And I wiped my tears
and I went home where I met my mother and the rest of the family back home
and I just praise God for what God had done at that time for us.
After the coup, the civil war broke up.
We came back to Bentol. Then I attended
And I graduated from High School at the
Frank E. Tolbert High School.
Graduated,
and I have
friends. If I say friends, girls. And we used to study together.
That's when I began to grow love for children.
Because wherever we went, lots of children followed us
with my mother. And so I began to grow love for children.
And the war was so terrible.
After my high school it was no way to go to college and so
I got married.
And my husband he took me along with him, we went back
to the city, Monrovia.
Before we could leave to go to Monrovia,
They could not just lay eyes on young girls.
They either captured you to be their wife or they either killed you.
So I was so afraid.
And one day, I told my husband that I wanted to go to the hospital.
The hospital in Bentol.
And the first day I stepped out, I was at the door of the hospital
and I saw this young man walking towards us. And he said "hey you, fine lady"
And I tried to ignore him.
He said "oh you're Mandingo woman."
I said "no, I am not a Mandingo lady."
He said "but then walk to me."
And I walked to him, he took the gun and laid it on my shoulder.
And he began to shoot into the bushes.
And I got so afraid. Then I turned to my husband and said, "as of today,
I won't come back any longer on this road."
Maybe until the war is over.
But the war intensified.
And there was no food. We could not find food anywhere.
Except the men they go, and my husband he was a minister of the gospel, a pastor
He's a reverend.
So he used to put on his cleric cloth. He would go searching for food for us.
And at that time I had a little kid, my son.
He was just about
Three years old. So we would stay home, he would go.
And this day they walked from Bentol to Monrovia.
On his way coming, they met the rebels.
And then they asked him, "where are you going?"
He said "I'm going to Bentol sir."
And being so afraid, the question that they asked him
they said, "so you are a Prince Johnson rebel?"
And he did not understand what they said and he said "oh, yes."
They said "come here." And they took him. He and a lady.
They put them into the container. They locked them up.
And you know it's good to serve God.
So they began to plan. And these people they came from the state and they were at the water plant.
So they went to do some inspection at the water plant, so then they began to speak their dialect.
And the dialect they could speak, my husband could understand it, which was Kpelle.
They said as soon as these men leave, we're going to get them out and
we will kill them. In their dialect.
So, he said that as he was in this container, and they heard the cars and things that came,
they were leaving. The water plant
Then they spoke, in Kpelle.
They said, "what have I done to you people, or what have we done to you people, you want to kill us?"
He said it in Kpelle.
(Speaks in Kpelle)
That is the interpretation. "What have we done to you people, you want to kill us?"
Then the men became astonished.
So they opened the container. They put them out.
They said "so you can speak Kpelle?" He said "yes sir."
Then he said,
He said "the God you are serving, continue to serve that God."
And he said "amen."
They said "okay take your load and leave this place."
So that's how he left, he and this other lady.
And at that time the news had already reached to us
that they had killed my husband and another lady. Well, I had the faith.
I had a strong faith
and people began to cry, but I did not cry because I knew I was going to see my husband.
Then when I looked I saw him coming.
Then he began to explain the story.
And that went by. It passed by.
We left. We went to the city.
And every time we tried to come back,
they would stop us because the war had intensified, and this was the main point because of
the Tolbert family from here.
And so every rebel, they had to pass through Bentol to get to Monrovia.
Every time we tried to come back they would stop us.
They said there was no way to come. There was no way to come.
And we began to pray. We began to pray.
My father, he was left behind.
And the rebels caught him.
They caught my father and they said that he was on reconnaissance.
And they killed my father.
And when we left, we came
We saw his bones, only his bones. And we managed to pick up the bones
and that's how we buried his bones.
After the war subsided, we came back to Bentol.
When we came back,
Charles Taylor group, they were here.
And at that time I had two kids. Two boys.
And I had them in school.
That is 1997.
While we were sleeping one night,
They bust into; entered on us and put us under gun point.
And all they would say, "what do you have here? We need everything that you got."
And I said "I do not have anything." They said "what is the bag that you used yesterday?"
And I was so confused. I was standing, I was so confused
and that's how we went and we were
forced to get out of the house.
We got out and my two children were taken away.
They took them to Todee and they said that they were rebels.
I began to pray. We began to pray.
That's how they took them
in Liberia, they dig under ground to put the gas tank for gas station.
And they took the children, they put them into that gas tank.
And with other men that were arrested. That they captured and carried.
So at that time all men were here. The Peacekeeping Force.
And I went to them, I explained my story.
They told me "madam, all you have to do is to pray and go to Charles Taylor."
And I began to think well God, how will I reach to this man?
And I prayed, I got one of my aunts and she went along with me.
And we started to walk among Rebels.
And my 23rd Psalms was across only on my lips.
We went, they questioned me
and I told them. As God could have it,
they sent other people and that's how my children were free from the rebels.
And we came back.
And since then, I began to grow love for children because God saved my children.
During the war we took care of 75 children, my husband and I.
Through C.A.P that is the Children Assistance Program at the ASC.
the American School Corporation.
When we went, they gave me those children and I started teaching them in a home
and later on after five years they were repatriated to their parents.
And since then, I've been taking care of children.
That's how I grew love for children up to now.
I'm still taking care of children.
This is what I went through the war.
War affected our children.
If you see children today, the challenges their mother or their father
Sometimes we go around, like me, if I see a child,
I just see you are not in school, I will call you.
What are you doing? You are not in school. And they will explain their story to me.
And I will have to maybe go to the parents. The war affected our children, and that is why we are trying to
get them out of the street,
to try to help them to be somebody for tomorrow.
One of the greatest affects that the war had, our children in this country.
So we need to praise God that He stopped the war for us, that we can move around freely,
and we can try to bring back those memories of yesterday for our children.
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