New Democrat (Monrovia)
Othello B. Garblah
7 September 2009
The remains (bones and skulls) of hundreds of people killed in a massacre just 10-days after the fall of Gbarnga from the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) that controlled it, the provincial capital of Bong County in September of 1994, have been buried.
The victims, an estimated 300-400, were residents of Kolokpai, a village in the County near the Kokoyah road and displaced persons who had gone to seek refuge there.
One of the massacre's survivors, Isaac Reed, now media relations officer of the House of Representative, told this paper Sunday that the victims were massacred by forces of the Liberian Peace Council (LPC) loyal to Dr. George Borley.
Another Survivor, Bong County Senator Franklin Siakor of Bong County, told this paper he escaped by the grace of God. He, too, said LPC fighters carried out the massacre.
Mr. Reed said the LPC rebels picked up victims who were fleeing the area after the ULIMO attack on the county's capital along the Kokoyah road, brought them to the village and also massacred them along with those that were there.
He said his brother was amongst those killed, while he and others were detained and thereafter made to cart arms and ammunition for the rebels.
He said the incident took place on September 18, exactly ten-days after the fall of Gbarnga, once now war crime indictee Charles Taylor stronghold.
"They came under the guise of reinforcement. That is how they even deceived more people to come out of their hiding places," Mr. Reed said.
"That massacre has not really been reported in the media," he said, adding "it was not even capture in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report."
The communal burial was carried out by a local Non-Governmental Organization, Young Women Organized for Sustainable Development.
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