Torture

One of the articles we read had to do with child soldiers. When I read about Ishmael's story I felt that it was already planned and fictional, because of the lucky breaks he caught. The article talks about how some people were treated when they were seized by the rebels. A few examples that stood out to me were a little girl who had a limb shot off, a woman whose ankles were cut off and was constantly abused, and pregnant women who would have to suffer through the soldiers cutting open their stomachs and taking out the babies. The rebels were out of control and they just wanted to kill people and get other people to join them, to basically turn the whole country of Sierra Leone against one another. The events discussed in the article were akin to the ones mentioned in the story. The sights were just as graphic and gruesome, but the reality of child soldiers and people sized by the army really hit me when reading the article. I could not believe that people could be so mean and cruel to little girls or pregnant women. I have to wonder what was going on in the minds of the rebels, and I have to wonder why they are so violent and killing. Even after reading materials on the war, I still have no idea what the rebels wanted from all of this.