Emmanuel (Part 2)

[Warning: Civil War descriptions, although authentic, might not be suitable for sensitive readers. Use discretion!]

After having met Emmanuel in a parking lot where he plied his trade as a car guard, to a very special customer who regularly sought him out and engaged in meaningful conversations with him, the young fellow gradually became a family friend. Over the course of the next few months, Emmanuel was invited for dinner at their Randburg home, and soon became a regular guest at their dinner table. As he grew in confidence that this family was trustworthy and showed a genuine interest in his “humanity,” Emmanuel became ever more forthcoming and shared his deeply personal experiences. A truly remarkable story unfolded of a harrowing escape from terror, dodging wicked war lords, human traffickers and a journey across the length of the continent to Johannesburg. There, in the “promised land flowing with milk and honey,” he faced further struggles and the scourge of xenophobia that left him disillusioned – until he met these kind Randburg folk who opened their home and their hearts to him.

Emmanuel’s story unfolded episodically, but not chronologically. His many varied experiences were shared as he felt comfortable speaking about them. Some of the most deeply disturbing events he often kept until last. Although “the family” suspected some of the most troubling experiences have not been revealed by this gentle soul who had transcended the depravity of warmongers in west Africa, they were able to piece together a compelling story of survival against all odds.

The first upheaval in Emmanuel’s life was the family’s flight to Monrovia when he was merely seven years old. His family, of the Gbandi tribe, was turfed off their land. Relegated to a state as second class citizens, he witnessed his father being severely beaten, their cattle and goats being slaughtered and their home being set alight. It was a bitter blow to a seven year old to witness his hero, a proud man and his respected father, humiliated in front of his children and his wife. Indeed their mother had not been spared either. Her assault was a jolt to Emmanuel’s psyche. It was an event that challenged his sense of himself and raised doubt about his own worth as a human being.

Their hasty departure from the place of his birth presaged a youth constantly on the run – away from utter savagery and towards a new life. The following years involved him eking out a meagre living, hiding from barbarism and terror, trudging to yet another new beginning and surviving by his wits.

Emmanuel’s family had settled in the West Point slum of Monrovia, and he had witnessed how his father and mother had scraped a living from the trash heap of the city and had, by their dogged determination and wits, built up a recycling enterprise. As they were beginning to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and could look forward to emerging from dire poverty, Emmanuel and his siblings were once again uprooted by marauding warlords, as they were pounced upon by Americo-Liberian militias. Their parents ushered them through the detritus of the streets of Monrovian slumland, to join some 2000 other refugees in St Peter’s Lutheran Church on a mission station south of West Point. There they huddled together, firmly believing that the precinct of a church – “holy ground” – would most certainly be respected by the marauding gangs. Were the brigands to have no respect for a house of worship, surely they would be overcome with trepidation lest they be consigned to Hell for a breach of hallowed ground. Alas, neither respect nor fear gripped the dark souls of Samuel Doe’s supporting armed youths.

About thirty of Doe’s vicious troops bludgeoned their way into the chapel.  Armed with machetes, assault rifles, baseball bats and clubs of various descriptions, they worked their way through the terrified, wailing and screaming victims of their lust for blood. Emmanuel found himself battling asphyxiation under scores of writhing human forms. From a nook between a pew and twisted bodies peered the horrified, deep set, eyes of a ten year old Emmanuel. He witnessed assault rifles being emptied on the people lying on top of his quaking body. Those not yet dead were mercilessly hammered with clubs and then dismembered. Emmanuel lay still, barely breathing, as he watched blood gushing from torsos that had been sliced with machetes. Right above him was a woman whose still warm blood ran over him – a blade having severed her jugular. Emmanuel lay twitching nervously for several hours amongst the 600 corpses Doe’s men had left in their wake. He was too anxious for his own life to escape, lest he be whisked away to join the growing number of child soldiers. Three days elapsed before he attempted to emerge from underneath, now rotting, corpses. His ten year old mind was indelibly marked by the horror he had witnessed. Emmanuel’s entire family, so he assumed, were among the 600 who perished in the church that day. He was, so he could gather, the sole survivor of his little clan. He did identify his mother’s corpse as he made his way out of the building, but never caught a glimpse of his father or any of his siblings. 

Emmanuel gingerly slinked along, stealthily under cover of darkness, to the outskirts of Monrovia. Around the city was raging the opening gambit of a civil war in Liberia which would claim in excess of 200 000 lives. Entering the fray from Côte d’ Ivoire was the likes of Charles Taylor who would oust Doe and execute him. Equally brutal and corrupt, Taylor would himself become a totalitarian dictator and unleash the most horrendous war crimes on the only big losers in the conflict – Liberian civilians. The war left in its wake the walking dead. Children were rounded up in both phases of the civil war by such warlords as “General Butt Naked” (Joshua Blahyi) and others with a nom de guerre no less bizarre. “Butt Naked” took his name from his propensity to fight, together with his child soldiers, in the nude after devouring human flesh and smoking copious amounts of heroin. They held a voodoo superstition that this evil ritual made them invisible to their enemies.

The young Emmanuel had to become a master of stealth to remain out of the clutches of war lords seeking children as soldiers. He learnt the art of clandestine observation and swift movement at the dead of night through dense undergrowth. There was the constant risk of being envenomed by snakes or devoured by man eating predators, but this danger was far less insidious than the threat posed by the West African warmongers. He steadily made his way over the course of several weeks, surviving by eating whatever the jungle could provide and drinking from springs and rivulets. He avoided food poisoning by observing the diet of monkeys that were distant, yet constant companions. The dreadfully murky water well nigh did him in, but he managed to survive that too.

It was with much joy that he reached the Cavalla River and crossed into Côte d’ Ivoire via an intact crossing near Gnato. Thence he would make his way to Abidjan and planned to settle there for a while before moving on to Egoli (Johannesburg), about which he had heard rumours. He envisioned streets paved with gold and the acquisition of enormous wealth in this land of promise. Meanwhile, his sights were set on Abidjan in a country he was sure was considerably safer than the one from which he had now finally escaped.

©Paul M Haupt

[Next week another stage of Emmanuel’s journey through West Africa will feature.] 

Photo credit: Getty Images