‘Bring hard justice’: Liberia civil war survivors welcome war crimes court
Al Jazeera
President signs order promising establishment of a war crimes court in efforts to bring justice 21 years after conflict.
Monrovia, Liberia – Rufus Katee, 60, remembers Liberia’s civil wars well.
It was July 1990 when the then-26-year-old ran to escape the fighting between armed groups and soldiers in the capital, Monrovia. He fled to St Peter’s Lutheran Church in search of safety.
“There were a lot of civilians who took refuge in the church. But I didn’t know I was going for my suffering,” Katee said, recalling the harrowing events that followed.
“Soldiers came to the church in the night and started shooting. Once it started, I dropped to the floor, but the people they killed were dropping over me, and they covered me. That’s how I survived,” he told Al Jazeera.
Katee broke his hip in the attack and, decades on, still suffers pain because of it.