Liberia: Family Calls for Justice and Reparations Over Maher Massacre

Morris Town, Bomi County — Watta Kanneh, 68, struggles to draw water from a creek next to towering palm trees, where she and other villagers make palm oil in two blackened drums sitting over huge fire hearths. Kanneh still suffers from wounds she received 16 years ago during the 2003 killings that became known as the Maher Massacre. Long scars on her back peek out from a sleeveless blouse. The tight scar tissue makes it difficult for her to lift the bucket.

The 2002 Maher Massacre is one of the last mass killings of the Liberian civil war (1989 - 2003). Kanneh lost 13 relatives in the massacre: her husband, four sons, a daughter, a daughter-in-law and six grandchildren, including a one-week-old baby. Just five survived. "Hundreds" of people were killed in the massacre, according to the Catholic Justice of the Peace Commission (JPC) two years after the massacre.

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