A weeping woman has told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) public hearings about how fighters of the defunct ULIMO-J beheaded her brother after he refused to have sex with her. Testifying Wednesday, survivor Rebecca Marker said following the capture of the port city of Robertsport in northwestern Liberia in 1993, she and her brother fled the city, but that while escaping, they came across a check-point, where her brother was ordered to have sex with her.
Weeping bitterly, Rebecca said even though they threatened to kill him if he refused, her brother insisted, and instead pleaded with them to spare his life.
“After they failed to convince him to have sexual intercourse with me, one of the fighters lay him between my legs and slit his throat. The blood splashed all over my body.”
She said she wept bitterly as she left behind her brother’s lifeless body and that upon reaching another group of fighters, she was raped and blunt objects stuck into her private part when they found fifty Liberians dollars – an enemy sign- on her.
She said the rebels accused her of being a spy for another faction and was beaten mercilessly, wounded all over her body and ordered her to strip naked and raped again.
“I begged them to leave me , but they could not. After they finally left me, I bled for three months, and I can still feel pain,” Rebecca concluded.
The Truth and reconciliation Commission (TRC) is an independent body set up to investigate the root causes of the Liberian confict, document human rights violations, review the history of Liberia, and record all human rights abuses that occurred in Liberia between 1979 and 2003.
Source African Press Agency
