Mariatu Kamara: A Tale of Survival To celebrate International
Women’s Day, the Canadian War Museum is pleased to host Mariatu
Kamara, a child victim of the civil war in Sierra Leone and
featured in the special exhibition 11 Women Facing War. Now
living in Toronto, Mariatu is UNICEF Canada’s Special
Representative for Children in Armed Conflict. She travels the
world to share her personal story of how she survived a rebel
attack that left her with no hands. This event will give
visitors the opportunity to meet a courageous survivor and to
learn more about this conflict. Before the event, meet up with
Dr. Andrew Burtch, the curator of 11 Women Facing War who will
take you on a special tour of the exhibition. Kamara was one of
about 20,000 people—half of them children—maimed during the
bloody, bitter civil war that devastated her West African
country from 1991 to 2002. An estimated 50,000 Sierra Leoneans
were killed, and two million fled to neighbouring countries as
refugees. When the war ended, Kamara came to C