Evidence of torture and human rights abuses Sierra Leone

Introduction

During the period from 1st January 1996 to 31st December 1998 the Medical Foundation received 77 new referrals from Sierra Leone. No further action was taken in 5 cases (suggesting that the referrals did not fall within the remit of the Medical Foundation) and 36 had medical reports prepared. The remaining 36 referrals did not require a medical report from the Medical Foundation but needed to access other services, such as our specialist counselling service. Of all the new referrals from Sierra Leone 47% received medical reports.

The medical reports that are compiled at the Medical Foundation document the client's story of human rights abuse or torture and any physical or psychological findings on medical examination.

The aims of this study are to describe some of the violations of human rights that the Medical Foundation has recorded that were suffered by Sierra Leonean clients who have been examined here and to comment on the way that the British Home Office perceives the situation in Sierra Leone when it determines whether to grant international protection to Sierra Leonean asylum seekers. It is based on the 36 torture survivors (26 women and 10 men) seen at the Medical Foundation from 1996-1998, on whom medico-legal reports were prepared.

The study shows that a wide range of human rights abuses have been perpetrated by opposition groups as well as by more than one government within Sierra Leone. The victims have been from various ethnic and social groups and abuse has been motivated by political reasons in some instances.

The most common form of human rights abuse was the rape or sexual assault of women with 20 out of 26 women (77%) reporting having suffered this and 17 of the 26 (65%) reporting being raped by more than one man on at least one occasion. 19 of the 26 women (73%) and 7 of the 10 men (70%) reported having been beaten and 7 of the 10 men (70%) reported being beaten specifically with rifle butts. 16 of the 36 people (44%) reported witnessing at least one murder.

Sierra Leone is an extremely unstable country with 14 successful or unsuccessful coups occurring since its independence from the UK in 1961. There have been three leaders of the country since 1996 involved in four governments, although none of them could be described as having been in full control of the country.

In the period from 1st January 1996 until 31th December 1998 the UK received 1720 applications for asylum from people who had fled Sierra Leone. In the same period the UK granted 25 people from Sierra Leone full refugee status and 55 people Exceptional Leave to Remain. This represents 4.65% (80/1720) of the total applications in the corresponding time period. In comparison, over the period from 1st January 1996 to 31st December 1997 the equivalent figure for the UK was 3.04% (35/1150), for the Netherlands was 28.95% (185/639) and for Germany was 6.97% (117/1679).

A refusal letter from the Home Office to a Medical Foundation client, dated 17th of April 1997, highlights the lack of insight into the volatile situation in Sierra Leone that the Home Office displays. It shows that the Home Office regards the Sierra Leonean government's claims about its intentions as proof of its actions:

"On 30 November 1996... President Kabbah and Foday Sankoh signed a 28 point peace agreement, thus effectively ending nearly six years of civil war. ... The Secretary of State considered these developments to be significant evidence of a determination by the new government to effect a solution to the rebel problem."

Unfortunately just 38 days after this letter was written, the government of President Kabbah was overthrown in a military coup which brought the rebel faction to power.

The Medical Foundation is concerned about the way in which the Home Office deals with applications for asylum from Sierra Leone. Not only does the UK grant a smaller percentage of asylum seekers either refugee status or Exceptional Leave to Remain (ELR) when compared to most other European countries, but its policy of suspending asylum decisions when there is political upheaval in Sierra Leone is questionable. It creates even more psychological distress for a vulnerable group of asylum seekers, and prolongs poor living conditions, especially for those surviving on National Assistance Act support. The Medical Foundation is also concerned that the policy of the Home Office is to refuse applications after each change in the political situation, suggesting that the change has made it 'safer' for asylum seekers to return despite an absence of any other indication that it might actually be 'safe'.

It is hoped that this report will allow the Home Office to work towards a better understanding of the situation in Sierra Leone and to develop a fairer system of deciding claims by Sierra Leonean asylum seekers in the UK, leading to granting international protection to those who merit it.

Evidence

Demographics

During the period from 1st January 1996 to 31st December 1998 the Medical Foundation received 77 new referrals from Sierra Leone. Of these no further action was taken in 5 cases (suggesting that the referrals did not fall within the remit of the Medical Foundation) and 36 had medical reports prepared. The remaining 36 referrals did not require a medical report from the Medical Foundation but needed to access other services, such as our specialist counselling service. Of all the new referrals from Sierra Leone 47% received medical reports.

This study is concerned with the 36 people who had medical reports written by the Medical Foundation. When preparing a medical report, one of the Medical Foundation doctors interviews and examines the patient thoroughly over the course of about two hours. A professional interpreter may be required if the client does not speak good English. The doctor records the information that he or she is given and asks questions to clarify what has happened to the patient. The doctor then undertakes a full examination focusing on areas identified from the client's story and taking care to document accurately the physical and psychological findings. Compiling the report may take more than one appointment, particularly if the client finds it very stressful to relate his or her experiences. During this time the doctor is able to form an impression of the person including his or her mental state.

Table 1: Distribution of the age and sex of clients (n=36)

Age		Women		Men
Less than 20		2		0
20-29		11		2
30-39		6		8
40-49		5		0
50-59		1		0
60 or over		1		0

Ten of the 36 clients were men and 26 were women. Most were in their 20s-30s (Table 1) and came from more than nine different ethnic groups. Sierra Leone is an extremely poor country; life expectancy at birth in 1997 was just 33.6 years. The turmoil in Sierra Leone has been described as '...not based on ethnicity,' so it is not surprising that ethnicity was not a motivating factor in most attacks reported to the Medical Foundation.

Table 2: Number of reported Human Rights Abuses (HRA) per year. One case from 1978 is not represented in the table (n=68)

Year		1991		1992		1993		1994		1995		1996		1997
No. HRA		8		19		14		22		2		0		2

The incidents of human rights abuses that the 36 clients reported occurred in the 1990s, except for one incident in 1978 (Table 2). This incident was the female genital mutilation of a client carried out against her will by a specific cultural secret society when the client was at the 'appropriate' age. There were 68 reported incidents of human rights violations against the 36 people in the sample. Twenty-two of the 36 people (61%) reported two or more serious human rights abuses against them.

Timescale of Human Rights Abuse

Table 3: Number of clients arriving in UK per year (n=36)

Year		1992		1993		1994		1995		1996		1997
No. of arrivals		1		6		22		3		3		1

Table 4: Time in years between the end of being abused and arrival in the UK (n=36)

Time (years)		<1			1-2			2-3			>3
No. of clients		19			11			5			1

Table 5: Time in years between the end of being abused and referral to the Medical Foundation (n=36)

Time (years)		<1			1-2			2-3			3-4			4-5			>5
No. of clients		1			2			7			13			10			3

Table 6: Stage of asylum process at which clients were referred to the Medical Foundation (n=36)

Stage of Process		Arrival - Application		Application - IND decision		IND decision - IAA decision		After IAA decision
No. of clients referred (%)		1(3)		6 (16)		24 (67)		5(14)

Tables 3, 4 and 5 show when the clients arrived in the UK, how long it took them to arrive in the UK after they had been abused and the time between being abused and being referred to the Medical Foundation. In 24 of the 36 cases in the study (67%), the medical report was obtained by the legal representatives acting for the applicant, after the claim had been initially refused by the Home Office but before appeal to the Immigration Appellate Authority (IAA) (Table 6).

Table 5 shows that it took most people between 3 and 5 years after their abuse to be referred to the Medical Foundation: 55 of the 68 reported abuses (81%) occurred between 1992 and 1994. The delay makes finding any physical evidence of torture less likely. This indicates that a correspondingly higher severity of injury may well have been inflicted to leave evidence after such a period. From Table 4 it can be seen that it usually, but not always, took clients less than a year to get from Sierra Leone to the UK. 50% of the sample clients applied for asylum at their port of entry into the UK. The other 50% took an average of 6.9 months to apply in country (1 day - 25 months). The Immigration and Nationality Department (IND) of the Home Office took an average of 21.5 months (range 5 - 47) to promulgate an initial decision and subsequently it took the IAA an average of 24.6months (range 11 - 37) to make determinations on appeals. Consequently the average length of time taken for the minimum due process to occur with these asylum applicants was 44.39 months (approx 3.67 years). These figures are underestimates as they include the time taken until 31 January 1999 for people who are still waiting for decisions (Calculations and tables are provided in Appendix 1).

Clients reported few problems getting out of Sierra Leone other than obtaining a passport and the money required to purchase passage. Most people either already held a valid passport, which was obtained before they were abused, or, if this was not the case, they used contacts (often relatives or friends) to obtain the passport for them.

'Q - But why did your friend take you to get your passport [?]
A - Because if I go there myself it will be very difficult to get it '

Most people in this sample travelled on valid passports. There could be several explanations for this. It could be that it is easy to obtain a passport as perhaps there are no checks made as to the status of the passport applicant, or, alternatively, that officials are easy to bribe. There is no reason to think that someone wanted by government agents outside Freetown would be known by a passport official in Freetown to be a wanted person since the communications infrastructure in Sierra Leone is likely to be poor, given the extent of the upheaval in the country. The Home Office frequently state that the possession of a passport by the applicant suggests that the authorities do not wish to persecute them but evidence from this sample indicates that in Sierra Leone it cannot be deduced that people who have a valid passport are not wanted by the authorities.

Money for passage was obtained, again often from relatives, friends or others. Frequently a combination of methods was employed to raise money, which took time.

'My Grandmother and fathers friend arranged my passage.'

Of the 19 cases which documented the asylum seeker's escape route all reported having to travel via a third country to arrive in the UK. Sixteen asylum seekers had needed to change planes in another European country (most frequently France) and 3 had obtained a direct flight from another African country.

Reported Patterns of Human Rights Abuse and Torture

Table 7: Number of reported incidents of human rights abuses by different agents in Sierra Leone. Others include secret societies, other refugees and unidentified soldiers (n=36)

Agents		Reported incidents
Government		30
RUF		31
Others		7

Table 7 shows that virtually all the abuses were committed by agents of either the government in power at the time or the Revolutionary United Front (RUF, the rebels), who have been engaged in civil war against every government except one since 1991. Thirteen of the 36 people (36%) had been abused by both government and RUF agents.

The forms of abuse that were commonly reported are shown in Tables 8 and 9. The most common form of human rights abuse was the rape or sexual assault of women, with 20 out of 26 women (77%) reporting having suffered this and 17 out of 26 (65%) reporting bei9ng raped by more than one man on at least one occasion. 19 of the 26 (73%) and 7 of the 10 men (70%) reported having been beaten; 7 of the 10 men (70%) reported being beaten specifically with rifle butts. 16 of the 36 people (44%) reported witnessing at least one murder.

Table 8: Common types of abuse reported, by sex and expressed as absolutes and percentages. This is in no way an exclusive list of abuses experienced.

Form of Abuse		Men (%)		Women (%)		Total (%)
Raped		0		18 (69)		18 (50)
Sexually assaulted		0		2 (8)		2 (5)
Beaten		7 (70)		19 (73)		26 (72)
Beaten with rifle butts		7 (70)		6 (23)		13 (36)
Witnessed rape		1 (10)		4 (15)		5 (14)
Witnessed murder		4 (40)		12 (46)		16 (44)
Threatened with death		4 (40)		6 (23)		10 (28)
Burnt with cigarettes		3 (30)		3 (11)		6 (17)
Forced to work or take up arms		4 (40)		8 (31)		12 (33)

Table 9: Types of rape perpetrated (n=18)

Incident of rape		No. of rapists		Women (%)
One		One		1 (5)
More than one		One		0
One		More than one		7 (19)
More than one		More than one		10 (56)

The delay between torture and referral to the Medical Foundation often makes finding medical evidence less likely. Usually the only evidence that remains are scars, visible on the skin, as many physical injuries heal without leaving a detectable sign. Occasionally there may be other evidence, such as radiographic evidence that a bone has been broken, but, as with scars, such evidence can be non-specific and it is only possible to say whether, in the professional opinion of the doctor, the evidence is consistent with the allegation of ill-treatment described by the client.

'This man has a very large number of scars... all of which could be accounted for by kicks and blows in the manner described by him... In my professional view there is a serious possibility that the signs observed by me... were caused in the way described by him.'

'Her lesions are absolutely consistent with her history...'

'This man has many scars consistent with his account of ill treatment. In particular he has a number of distinctive cigarette burns... I do not, therefore doubt this man's account of his torture.'

Different patterns of abuse were reported, depending on who the perpetrators were. Both the RUF and the government agents (who were mostly soldiers) committed rape frequently. All the incidents of being forced to work or take up arms were at the hands of the RUF, who abducted people to their camps in the bush. Women were used as cooks and were frequently raped; men were used to carry equipment and were often forced to take up arms with the RUF under threat of death. People escaped the RUF usually when the rebel soldiers left to fight the army. Many of these abductees were subsequently captured by government troops and accused of being members or sympathisers of the RUF. Women would then be raped and beaten and men beaten, in order to punish them, before being released.

An example of this is provided by one of the sample cases, a woman who was taken by the RUF, raped and forced to work but escaped when troops loyal to the government attacked the camp. She was later arrested by government soldiers who suspected her of rebel involvement as she was known to have been a previous member of the All Peoples Congress (APC) party. They raped her and held her in their barracks before releasing her. In the determination of the case the IAA Special Adjudicator stated:

'I find this lacks credibility...The appellant had not had a high level of involvement previously with the APC and having escaped from the rebels I simply do not accept that the government forces would arrest her as being under suspicion of herself being a rebel.'

23 people in the sample had been abused by the rebels and 10 of these (44%) reported that they were detained by government agents on suspicion of being RUF members after escaping from an RUF camp. Thirteen people in total reported abuse by both the rebels and the government.

Detention in the conventional sense of being held in a cell was unusual since RUF camps were in the bush and government troops did not often detain people for longer than a day, often just beating them and moving on.

Recent reports from several agencies have noted particular forms of abuse becoming more widespread in Sierra Leone. For instance the amputation of limbs by rebel soldiers has been reported several times and is reported by one person in this sample, who had his right hand amputated by RUF soldiers in 1994. Another practice reported elsewhere is the removal of foetuses from pregnant women. This was reported as having been witnessed by two women in the sample. One related her experience to Dr J.Gibson:

'Her sister was eight months pregnant and had her four-year-old son with her... The soldiers argued amongst themselves as to the likely sex of the unborn baby and then said that the only way to find out was to rip the pregnant mother open. They did so and killed both her sister and the unborn baby. ...She gets severe nightmares every night in which she relives everything which happened to her... She was in tears for much of the time she was giving her history...'

Psychological Abuse

In table 8 it can be seen that many people in the sample were subjected to psychological abuse in the forms of being forced to witness rape or murder, often of family members, and being threatened with death. The extent of long-term psychological damage remains unclear but evidence from this and other studies suggests that it may be considerable.

18 of the 36 medical reports (50%) mention the client being depressed; 22 of the 36 (61%) mention anxiety, flashbacks or nightmares relating to abuse; and 2 of these medical reports diagnose Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the time of interview.

Political Persecution

15 of the 26 people in the sample reported membership of a political party (42%), of these, 14 had been members of the APC party and 9 of these (64%) reported a political reason for being abused. All the 9 incidents of political persecution occurred between the coup led by Strasser, which deposed the APC government in 1992, and mid-1993. None of these people could be considered as high-ranking members of the party, although two people were related to ministers in the government. The Home Office have stated:

'The Secretary of State understands that only high ranking APC members and officials would be likely to attract the adverse attention of the NPRC.'

'The Secretary of State noted that your claimed involvement with the APC was minimal. He understood that a large percentage of the electorate had been APC members and there was no evidence of people having been persecuted purely on this basis.'

The evidence from this study does suggest that people were persecuted on the grounds of belong to the APC.

The other politically active person in the sample had been a member of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) and was attacked after the coup led by Koroma that deposed SLPP government in 1997.

Racial Persecution
Despite the fact that ethnicity was not the usual motivation for attacks, it appeared to be so in the case of a Lebanese couple in the sample. The Lebanese population in Sierra Leone is small and historically are traders and relatively rich. In this incident the couple, having been severely abused in their own home, fled into the bush to be confronted by a band of RUF soldiers:

'They were told that the white man had exploited Africa and taken all their wealth, their emeralds, their diamonds etc and that they were responsible for what the white man had done to Africa... Mr X was beaten severely by the soldiers... and he soon lost consciousness.'

Recommendations

• The Home Office should resume making decisions on asylum applicants from Sierra Leone.
• The IAA should continue to list and hear appeals from Sierra Leone asylum seekers and resist adjournments requested by the Home Office unless supported by the appellant.
• The Medical Foundation clients in this sample who have not had a decision on their asylum applications, or where new medical evidence supports their claim, should be granted ELR or full refugee status in the UK.
• The Home Office should honour their wider commitment to grant ELR in situations where achieving returns is not possible due to '€¦insuperable practical problems in achieving returns'.