|
The
Voinjama District covers the largest geographical area within Liberia.
It is located in
the northern tip of the country, which is about the
size of the State of Virginia. Lofa County,
in which the Voinjama
District is located, is a mountainous region that is bordered by
Guinea
on the north and east and Sierra Leone on the west.
The
Lofa area was devastated by three main waves of tribal
violence that swept the
county, and in fact, the whole
country, intermittently between 1989 and 2003.
Civilians
were uprooted, families separated, women raped or
killed if they refused the advances,
boys conscripted as
rebel soldiers, and men frequently tortured and executed.
The
district
remained inaccessible until the later part of 2004, when UN
peace-keeping
troops began to arrive and rebels were persuaded to put
down their guns. All twenty-two
local congregations totaling about four
thousand members and homes were severely looted and destroyed.
Hardest hit by these effects of war were pastors, women, children, and
elderly persons who were deprived of basic necessities of life and thereby
rendered
homeless and totally displaced. Families during this period were and
even now continue to be uprooted from their traditional support system of
subsistence farming and forced to heavily rely on handouts.
|
