Memories
Three New Narratives fellows and I are working on a piece on Monrovia's mass graves. Today we interviewed survivors of two of the most notorious massacres during the war, at a Lutheran church in Monrovia's Sinkor neighborhood in July 1990, later that month, at the James Spriggs Payne Airport. Both massacres were carried out by members of Liberia's armed forces.
"Many days and nights we were threatened by AFL soldiers," says Samuel Mehn, a Monrovia security guard who survived the Lutheran church massacre at 17.
"Six hundred people who survived the JFK [hospital] massacre fled to the church..."
July 28, 1990 -- It was about 11, 11:45. "We saw a Jeep and heard machine guns...."
"BBC announced during the massacre they killed over 500 persons..."
"Seven or eight people survived and joined Prince Johnson's rebel army. I don't know where they are now."
"We heard pounding on the doors. They asked whether we were hosting rebels," says David Targbe, 45, the acting head of news at Radio Veritas. In 1990, he was 24, a cub reporter with state radio.
"That night they raped most of my cousins and one of my sisters..."
"They asked us to stand in line...they started shooting one person after another."
"The bullet skimmed my head. I dropped myself in the valley and pretended I was dead."
"Even before that night, there a lot of mysterious killings, secret killings...You'd see pickups loaded with human beings...they'd come back empty. They'd make these trips 3, 4, 5 times a day."
"Many days and nights we were threatened by AFL soldiers," says Samuel Mehn, a Monrovia security guard who survived the Lutheran church massacre at 17.
"Six hundred people who survived the JFK [hospital] massacre fled to the church..."
July 28, 1990 -- It was about 11, 11:45. "We saw a Jeep and heard machine guns...."
"BBC announced during the massacre they killed over 500 persons..."
"Seven or eight people survived and joined Prince Johnson's rebel army. I don't know where they are now."
"We heard pounding on the doors. They asked whether we were hosting rebels," says David Targbe, 45, the acting head of news at Radio Veritas. In 1990, he was 24, a cub reporter with state radio.
"That night they raped most of my cousins and one of my sisters..."
"They asked us to stand in line...they started shooting one person after another."
"The bullet skimmed my head. I dropped myself in the valley and pretended I was dead."
"Even before that night, there a lot of mysterious killings, secret killings...You'd see pickups loaded with human beings...they'd come back empty. They'd make these trips 3, 4, 5 times a day."
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