Unfulfilled Promise: Kenema’s War Victims Endure Deplorable Conditions

By Josephine Nyeweah (ATJLF/MRCG Fellow 2025)

Twenty-three years after Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war, hundreds of amputees and war-wounded individuals in Kenema’s designated camps are living in deplorable conditions. They are desperately pleading for urgent government and humanitarian aid, as critical Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) recommendations remain largely unfulfilled.

Dominic Brima, chairman of the Amputees and War Wounded Association based at Norway Camp, located about six miles from Kenema city, and didn’t sugarcoat words. “We are suffering in dilapidated housing, years after the conflict,” he stated, emphasizing the desperate need for intervention. Brima, like many others, found himself in Kenema after being discharged from the government hospital, unable to return to his village. He joined fellow physically challenged persons in one of the three established camps: Turi, Eliza, and Norway, each initially intended to house 17 families.