DEVELOPMENT-SIERRA LEONE: Centre Manufactures Limbs for Amputees

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Mar 10 1999 (IPS) - At the Murray Town Camp for Amputees and the War Wounded in the Sierra Leonean capital, men, women and children are being given more than just hope to pick up the pieces of their lives.

The camp has a specially equipped workshop where technicians working for the non-governmental organisation Handicap International, manufacture artificial limbs for amputees.

“We are working on prothesis for both the upper limbs and lower limbs,” says Alexis Randin, an orthopaedist at the camp. “We design limbs that enable the people to look after themselves and which give them minimum independence to be able to wash, eat…”

The limb-fitting centre at the camp relies mainly on local materials. This is cost effective, says Billy Mansaray, the centre’s physiotherapist, who adds that the service is provided at no cost to the amputees.

The majority of the technicians at the centre are Sierra Leoneans, including amputees.

Funding for the limb-fitting programme comes from the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO), and additional support in the form of medicines, shelter and food is provided by organisations like the Adventists Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) and Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

The manufacturing and fitting of artificial limbs began last June for about 300 amputees who were living at a camp in Waterloo, a peninsula village about 30 kilometres east of the capital.

But when the troops loyal to the ousted Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and members of the Revolutionary United Front(RUF), the AFRC’s allies, invaded the capital city in January, the amputees were chased away from Waterloo.

The rebels have waged a campaign of terror against civilians throughout the country since the toppling of the AFRC last year in February by the Nigerian-led West African Peacekeeping Force (ECOMOG).

President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah’s civilian government, which was exiled in Conkary, Guinea, returned to power in March, 1998.

People have been killed and maimed by the marauding rebels. Thousands have had their arms and legs amputated in rebel attacks throughout the country.

“We have over 40 amputees admitted into the main Connaught Hospital and dozens more scattered in various health outlets across the capital alone. It is a very horrible situation,” says health worker Michael Sam.

For the people who have managed to find their way to the capital Freetown from the rural areas, the horror of the rebel attacks will be with them for a long time.

Eighteen-year-old Sheku Mansaray recalls that 60 civilians, including himself, were lined up for amputation when the rebels attacked the eastern town of Koidu.

“My uncle, aunt and five other relatives were among those whose legs or arms were chopped off by the heartless rebels,” says Mansaray, who could not control his tears. “They slashed off both my wrists.”

Blunt cutlasses were used to sever the limbs and, according to those interviewed, the rebels always gave them the following message: “Go and show your hands to President Tejan Kabbah whom you support. He will heal them.”

A 40-year-old man at the camp told IPS that after his left wrist was slashed off, he wailed at the pain and the sight of blood oozing from his hand.

When asked by a teenage rebel if it hurt, he answered yes, only to then receive the force of the machete again.

Abdulai Sesay, an orthopaedic specialist at the limb-fitting centre, says besides providing the amputees with the artificial limbs, they also are counselled at the camp’s psycho-social unit.

He adds that the amputees have made progress in using the limbs, and several have started activities to earn an income. “Some are already practising soap-making and even some a bit of agricultural activity.”