The Art of Mending War-Wounded Children
"They have seen corpses and severed heads littering the streets outside their homes. They have heard the screams of their parents and others being tortured, in some cases killed, before their eyes. Eleven-year-old Damba Koroma remembers her part of her left arm being cut off by a gang of gun-toting teenagers five years ago. When her mother cried out in protest, they chopped off her left arm in the same spot as well... Living now with U.S. host families, most of these children had tried to bury their horrible memories; that is, until attending the four-week camp set up at Francis C. Hammond Middle School by the Falls Church-based Center for Multicultural Human Services. There, therapists and others are giving the children a chance to talk about their experiences and vent their fears and feelings in healthy and creative ways... The activities break the ice on some difficult topics. For instance, when the campers were asked to draw scenes from their country, most sketched stick figures with severed limbs or heads and gushing blood, which opened the door to discussions about what they were thinking and feeling as they drew."

...and a powerful Photo Gallery on the amputees and refugees of Sierra Leone. Much of this fighting has been funded/fueled by the diamond industry (see Wed July 30 post on war in Congo).