Operation No Living Thing

February 16, 2002 10:57 AM

Operation No Living Thing Part of the larger website-Postcards from Hell- a website of A. Raffaele Ciriello's photojournalism. I still can not believe what happened in Sierra Leone actually happened, much less remains obscure to most people. These are photos of some people who survived. Their quiet dignity is beyond words.
posted by quercus (3 comments total)

Link spotted on Mike's Weblog.
posted by quercus at 10:59 AM on February 16, 2002

Thank you for the great link. There is a lot of horror out there that gets little press or acknowlegment. Much of Africa is a hell-hole, perhaps as a result of the vacuum left from decolonialism; whether it's on a tribal or religious or political level, a simplified explanation could be that there is never a shortage of power hungry dictator types who use the alienated masses as a power base to further their own aims. While military intervention may allieviate the immediate suffering, it is always a stopgap measure. The disenfranchised must be given the tools (education and infrastructure) to feel that they have a stake in creating and maintaining human rights.
posted by Mack Twain at 12:37 PM on February 16, 2002

the worst place on earth by james traub

Sierra Leone is a tiny West African country famous now only for its evil. Once it was known as the source of some of the world's highest-quality diamonds, but the stones have been plundered for generations by colonial mining companies, corrupt heads of state, Lebanese merchants, and profiteering warlords, and the supply of the finest diamonds has been depleted. Now Sierra Leone is known as the place where its rebels chop off people's hands and feet, rape little girls and old women, press-gang children into combat, and use civilians as human shields. A visitor to Sierra Leone has an inevitable impulse to inquire into this evil. It may be pointless, but you want to know: How could human beings do these things?

(via linkworthy)
posted by kliuless at 9:42 AM on February 17, 2002