Twenty-seven-year-old Kabba Williams is a bundle of energy and ambition. You get the sense that nothing will hold him back. He has many passions, one is the plight of former child soldiers… He is one himself.
Kabba’s story starts when he was about six years old. He says the rebels came to his village during the dry season and he was at the next village.
Suddenly, he heard gunshots and saw smoke and flames rising out of his village. People were running, carrying their children while others were crying, he says. Even the dogs were running trying to escape the violence. He waited to see if there was any sign of his mother, but he never saw her again.
Eventually he went back into the village. “I met the village just like a graveyard. It was very silent and I started crying because I saw a lot of dead bodies lying like leaves from the tree,” he explains.
He was soon discovered by the rebels and forced to join them. As a small child, he went through training, learning how to use a gun, how to kill, how to escape and how to clean his rifle.
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He was often used as a spy by the rebels and forced to carry heavy loads for them long distances. He was also drugged and brainwashed and that is when the worst of it happened.
“Sometimes we committed atrocities, we burned houses, we chopped off hands, and at times we raped, we killed unnecessarily,” he explains, talking slowly, pausing at the memory.
He then continues “but we were under the influence of drugs and were doing it under the command of adults those who were leading us. We were children. My childhood was taken from me, my pencil was exchanged for a gun. At the time, I was killing and doing a lot of things – I felt like I was acting in a film.”
He says he escaped after about six months, then was captured by the government soldiers and fought for them.
Somehow, he has managed to overcome his past, through prayer, counselling and going to school. However, thousands of others haven’t managed so well, and Kabba’s heart is with them.
He introduced me to two young men, both 20, both former child soldiers, and both now live on the street. They carry loads for people or wash cars in attempts to get enough money to survive.
One of them, Michael Kamara, says the rebels came to his house, killed his mother and father and then threatened to kill him too if he didn’t go with them. He says he was taken to kill, loot and burn down houses.
It all ended when the U.N. intervened and took the child soldiers to refugee camps. Despite a government reintegration program, he says he never received the promised education or skills training and now just wants to find a way to get a job and live a peaceful life.
Two similar stories with such different endings. In contrast to Michael, Kabba not only went to school, but he is now a university graduate and volunteers teaching young people in a special program.
Now he is speaking out in hopes of getting help to other former child soldiers. He says they are victims too. They already lost their childhoods. They shouldn’t lose their future as well.
Christina is a Global National correspondent based in Toronto. She is currently reporting from Freetown. Follow her on Twitter: @StevensGlobal.
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