sierra leone

Sierra Leonean Still Searches for the Comforts of Home in Guinean Refugee Camps
By Cynthia Glocker, press officer

OUIEDE-KENEMA, Guinea - At 95, Haja Fatima Swara tearfully remembers her home country of Sierra Leone as a blissful place and peaceful country. But that was before the war, when she still had a home large enough to shelter her eight children, who were alive and living close to her.

Swara lived in the diamond-rich Kona district of northern Sierra Leone, where Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels often terrorize families to gain control of the resources in the region.

"I never thought war was going to come to Sierra Leone," says Swara. "When I heard the war was coming to Sierra Leone, I could not believe it."

The Swara family was not spared. The rebels burned down her house and then harvested their crops to try to drive she and her husband into the neighboring country of Guinea. In the heat of battle, the rebels killed her husband leaving Swara no choice but to flee her beloved home into Guinea riding on her granddaughter's back in the middle of the night.

"I asked him to come with me to Guinea, but he refused and then the rebels killed him," says Swara of her spouse of 73 years. "I have eight children, but I don't know any of their whereabouts."

But she does know where five of her grandchildren are. They live near Swara in the Ouiede-Kenema refugee camp, among the nearly 300,000 Sierra Leonean refugees in 48 different camps who are surviving on the food - vegetable oil, bulgur wheat, flour, green peas and a corn soy blend - distributed to them by CARE.

"The food supply is very important to us, without it we would die, says Swara. "We do not have any seeds or land."

While Swara has access to the food CARE distributes in the refugee camp, she remains hungry for the fruits and vegetables she used to enjoy at home. Despite her advanced age, Swara's hunger pains often force her to walk into the bush in search of those fresh foods. "I am always worried when I go in the search of food because I am scared someone will hurt me," says Swara. "But I am thinking I need to get fresh food to eat. I went into the bush recently to get bush yams (tomatoes), and I planted it here."

Now, Swara passes the time sitting on small stool outside the mud hut she lives in, watching her yams grow and remembering the past.

"At times, I wish I stayed with my husband in Sierra Leone and died," says Swara, weeping. "At other times, I just want to cook him dinner."