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Cry Freetown: 'Now you may judge for yourself'

On January 6, 1999, after eight years of fighting, Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front attacked the capital city. The resulting battle between RUF forces and Nigerian-led troops of the Economic Community Military Observer Group (ECOMOG) was a bloody march through streets and suburbs of Freetown.

In the weeks that followed no one was safe -- military or civilian, young or old, the boy next door, not even the journalist from halfway around the world.

During the battle, award-winning cameraman Sorious Samura, a native of Sierra Leone, stayed in his hometown to tape the brutality of the attack.

"Very little of the footage has actually been shown -- judged too extreme for television," Samura said. "In this madness my job was to record the history happening in my country ... personally I feel that was the only way that people would be able to understand what was happening in Sierra Leone -- when they see the true pictures, the real pictures, the brutality."

Here is a portion of Samura's documentary "Cry Freetown."

Windows Media: 28K 80K
Image Gallery: "Cry Freetown" 


"Cry Freetown" was produced by Insight News Television.