Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) public hearing continues in Gbarnga, Bong County with a survivor detailing accounts of how fighters of Alhaji Kromah's ULIMOD-K faction massacred 100 civilians in Gaygbai Camp, Sanoyea District, Bong County.
Mallah Kerkulah, told commissioners how on one rainy night in 1993 ULIMOD-K fighters stormed the town and broke the doors of the homes of inhabitants claiming to be fighters of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL).
The witness explained that after all the town's inhabitants assembled out of their homes the fighters informed them that they were ULIMOD-K combatants saying that everyone in the town will be killed.
"And it was raining and the ground was wet. So they say that Charles Taylor send them. So we started thinking, that what they want tell us that they come wake us up? So they say you sit down us coming. So when we were sitting down, one of the men came and said, do you know who we are, then we say no, so the man said we are ULIMOD- K, we are coming to kill every body in this town here," the witness testified.
Following the disclosure, the witness explained, the Mandingo speaking fighters started killing the inhabitants. She recounted that some of them were shot while others were chopped with machetes.
The witness: "That how the people were speaking in the Mandingo dialect and they started killing us, shooting us. One huge man sitting side me was shot and the man fell down. So they shot one of my sister and she started crying, saying, "here me here oh, your just kill me once and for all because your na spoil me." So one boy was there, he was having flash light in his hand, he was looking around, when he see the people them shaking, he will kill them. So I was just lying down looking at them. The boy took the bayonet knife and stabbed my sister 2 times and then the girl shut up and became quiet. The people they killed were 100."
She explained that following the massacre, the retreating fighters left the town singing before fighters of the NPFL arrived the next morning and took the wounded victims for medical treatment at the LAMCO Hospital in Yekepa, Nimba County.
The TRC is an independent body set up to investigate the root causes of the Liberian crisis, document human rights violations, review the history of Liberia, and put all human rights abuses that occurred during the period from 1979 to 2003 on record. The TRC mandate is to also identify victims and perpetrators and make recommendations on amnesty, prosecution and reparation.
The ongoing rural public hearings are being held under the theme: "Confronting Our Difficult Past, For A Better Future."
