By Mohamed Vandi
In what looks like a replay of the classical biblical case of Sarah and Deborah, the police family support unit (FSU) in Kenema have started investigating a case involving two women both of whom are laying claim to a 12-year-old. The boy had been living in Daru town for more than eight years with a nurse, Amie Joseph.
An FSU source said the matter was initially reported to the Daru police station where preliminary investigations started but was subsequently referred to the FSU regional headquarters in Kenema.
Speaking to Politico at the Kenema FSU, one of the claimants, Gbessay Momoh said she gave birth to the child on the 24 December 1997 in Kueva Mandu village, Mandu Chiefdom in Kailahun District and named him Vandi Momoh. She said the child was about two years old when she lost him during a rebel attack on the town. Gbessay said that since then she had searched extensively for her son but to no avail until she received information that he had been discovered by her daughter, Yatta Momoh.
She said that upon her arrival in Daru, she peacefully questioned Nurse Amie about the boy who she said told her that he was given to her by a lady called Kadiatu who was on her way to Daru. She said that when Kadiatu arrived, she also claimed the child which led to their reporting of the matter to the FSU in Daru.
Yatta Momoh, Gbessay daughter said that she first saw the boy on the 15 July 2013 at a nearby house while it was raining. “I was shocked as soon as I saw him because he resembled my other younger brother. So I asked about his relatives” she explained, adding the boy replied that he had never known his parents except one Kadiatu who took him to a nurse Amie.
Yatta said the boy explained that Amie and her children had been very cruel to him and that they always provoked him over the fact that he was abandoned during the war. She said that during the conversation she was able to recognize the boy as his younger brother who got lost during the war. After their discussion, she went home and shared the information with other family members, who immediately sent for their mother in the village.
Meanwhile, the other claimant, Kadiatu Bockarie said she gave birth to the boy in Ngelehun Village around Boidu town in Kailahun District and named him John Joseph. She said she did not know the date but recalled to have given birth to the child “two months, two weeks after former rebel commando Col. Sam Bockarie commonly called ‘mosquito’ had finally left Kailahun to settle down in Liberia.” Kadiatu said she handed the boy to “nurse Amine and travelled to Liberia where she separated with the boy’s father, Momoh, whose surname she did not know also. Nurse Amie said that the boy had been in her care, adding that when he was about two years old, he fell ill and his body got swollen when Kadiatu handed the boy over to her. She said she agreed to take care of the boy out of sympathy for Kadiatu because Kadiatu was pregnant at the time.
Speaking to Politico while in police guardianship in Kenema, the disputed boy said that he was not convinced that Kadiatu was his biological mother. He said that Nurse Amie and her children had been very cruel with him throughout his stay with them alleging that on several occasions he had been reminded about the fact that he was discovered during the war. “Nobody had ever told me about my biological mother. All I have been able to gather is that my mother was killed during the war,” Joseph said. He attends the Kailahun District Education Committee School in Daru.
