Case report

Ellen (42), a tall gaunt woman from Tarayaken, has travelled for eight hours – by foot, through the bush, and on poor roads. She wants to tell her story to medica mondiale and all forty women delegates from the River Gee district:

“Run, run, run! This is what women and children used to shout to one another. I have no idea how often. We were in the bush for fourteen years. Hot meals? Almost never. Fire would have alerted the rebels. They were simply brutal. My husband and my brothers were hacked to pieces before my very eyes! Now that the war is over things are still difficult. I am trying to grow rice again in the fields. But not much is growing. Everyone is hungry here during the rainy period. And there is just one well for the entire village, no school, no hospital. We are so happy that medica mondiale and the German Agro Action are here. This is the first time that someone has truly made an effort to come to this forgotten corner of Liberia.”

Later in a one-to-one talk she says quietly, “On the whole we were lucky. Our men were killed. We women were just raped.”