Today, by accident, I stumbled upon the magnificent website of Marcus Bleasdale, a former trader of interest-rate derivatives for the Bank of America, turned photojournalist. In 1998, after having won an award for being a rising young photojournalist, he worked in Sierra Leone and later in Central Africa. Reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness he became intrigued with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Conflicts among warlords, rebel groups and government forces over control of the country’s mineral wealth have left more than 5 million people dead since 1998 and created a humanitarian crisis in the country. Bleasdale made an impressive video called ‘Rape of a Nation’. I think you shouldn’t miss this movie because of the similarities with the Liberian civil war, except for the numbers.
Unlike the DRC, the Liberian war has ended. Both countries face the same problem: how to overcome the scars of the war.