Children of War

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In 1999, Sierra Leone was in the grip of a brutal civil war that had lasted for eight years. That January, it was estimated that 8000 people in the capital, Freetown, had been slaughtered in a fortnight. The plight of children is one of the most appalling legacies of the conflict. Boys were abducted from their homes, trained to fight and in some instances, drugged with cocaine to take away their fear and make then into killing machines. Girls were raped and used as sex slaves and cooks. The...
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In 1999, Sierra Leone was in the grip of a brutal civil war that had lasted for eight years. That January, it was estimated that 8000 people in the capital, Freetown, had been slaughtered in a fortnight. The plight of children is one of the most appalling legacies of the conflict. Boys were abducted from their homes, trained to fight and in some instances, drugged with cocaine to take away their fear and make then into killing machines. Girls were raped and used as sex slaves and cooks. The children in these images had been rescued and were being rehabilitated in Lakka, a former holiday resort for wealthy French tourists, twenty miles from Freetown.
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