Safe at Last

My name is Myanlay Muyan*; I am a Liberian seeking refugee protection in Canada, a father of six with a lovely wife.  In 1990, my nightmare began when the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) rebelled, launching a military campaign to remove and overthrow the late president Samuel Key Doe.

The mission of the NPFL rebel’s movement changed when they started to target my tribe, MANDINGO, as well as the Islamic religion. On July 12, 1990 the NPFL rebels entered my town; Barkedo, Lofa County, and called everyone to the town hall for a meeting. Once we were assembled, the rebels opened fire, massacring over 300 innocent civilians, including my mother and father.  My family and I, luckily, managed to escape to the neighbouring country of Guinea. The war intensified and Liberia became a lawless country. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) decided to intervene and sent Peace Keeping forces to restore law and order and bring back peace and stability to Liberia.

They started with a peace conference between the government and rebel forces. These peace negotiations resulted in the establishment of the government of National Unity; which reflected the representatives and civil societies of the warring factions. In this Government, I served as Director of public safety in the Ministry of Justice and was appointed as chairman for a special investigative committee, to investigate massacres allegedly committed by the rebels of National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and led by the former president, Charles Taylor. I was targeted by the former combatants who were allegedly involved in the massacre.

At about 1:30am on July 12, 2006, a group of former fighters attacked my residence in the St. Paul Bridge Community, Monrovia, with sticks and knives. They broke into my house, arrested my two brothers, tied up my wife, and my children fled in different directions while I was hiding under the bed. They looted our entire house, searching for me.  They unfortunately saw me under the bed. They beat me, tied me up and took me behind the house to execute me.

They broke into my safe and took some of our American money, Liberian Dollars as well as gold. While they were busy distributing the money amongst themselves, they became entangled in a debate. While quarrelling, the United Nations Peace Keeping forces arrived on the scene and started shooting in the air scaring them away. Due to these traumas and tortures in my family’s life, we understand our horrible fate if we returned to Liberia, since the same NPFL rebels I investigated are currently in power.

My family and I are so grateful for the Mennonite Coalition for Refugee Support, for their incredible support and community outreach which has made this difficult time in my family’s lives a little bit easier.

*Please note names have been changed for safety reasons