Child soldier turned author shares his story with ISL students

(MSS) Ishmael Beah from Sierra Leone shared his story about his teenage years as a child soldier with students of the International School of Luxembourg on Friday morning.

“Imagine you hear gunshots – and that they're shooting to kill you, not to scare you,” Ishmael said to the crowd of pupils, who had joined the talk co-organised by Unicef.

The best-selling author was visiting Luxembourg to help raise funds for the Kannerliicht campaign, which this year aims to raise awareness and funds to free child soldiers across the world who, like Ishmael was forced to, are fighting in wars across the globe.

His book and New York Times best seller “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier,” tells 26-year-old Ishmael's story in his own words, from when he was recruited and forced to inflict extreme pain on others, to his rehabilitation at a Unicef centre and re-entry into the world of civilians.

After signing copies of the book Friday morning, he spoke to the pupils about the horrors of being a boy soldier and losing all you've ever known.

“We lost the ability to feel”

At the time the war broke out in Sierra Leone, Ishmael was just 12 years old. Despite his young age, he understood that the rebels had no mercy towards anybody. He understood that it was a question of life or death.

“From that moment my life was reduced to worrying whether I would survive the next minute,” he said.

When the government started recruiting children as soldiers, Ishmael had no option but to do as told. He was then 13, but children as young as nine years old were trained to kill, even if the guns were taller than themselves, he recalled.

High on drugs and sometimes barefoot, the children were sent out to the villages, where they would kill men, women and children. Sometimes, Ishmael said, they would even be forced to kill their friends or family. The commanders became father figures and role models for Ishmael and the other children, who were told they were “only capable of violence.”

“The more violent you were, the more loyalty you earned. We were told not to cry, when our friends died, but to pick up their weapon and move on. We lost the ability to feel,” he said.

Help from Unicef

Ishmael was lucky enough to be rescued by Unicef. After long negotiations the commanders agreed to slowly start releasing some of the children and Ishmael was placed in a rehabilitation centre, where he received psychological help and treatment for his drug addiction. He also had to re-learn how to sleep after his time of terror.

“The hardest thing is to forgive and forget,” he answered, when a girl from the crowd asked whether he had ever learned to forgive the people who were the cause of his horrific memories.

For a long time, Ishmael had been very angry, he said, but over the years he has learned to live with the memories.

“Until you do forgive, you won't have peace in your life,” he said.