Boston, Massachusetts 16 Jun 2006 - Isiata Thorley, a 31-year-old woman from Sierra Leone, has vivid eyes and a broad smile. Her sparkly warmth is all the more remarkable considering the grueling journey she has undertaken since war struck her village in 2001. Her story bears the common traces of fear, hope and courage that mark so many refugees’ lives.

Isiata was buying her daily groceries in the open market when she heard gunshots. Everyone panicked. The Revolutionary United Front was attacking her village, just one skirmish in a brutal civil war that started in neighboring Liberia and spread to Sierra Leone more than a decade ago.

“It was unexpected and I just had to run,” Isiata says. She fled into the bush, where she lay in hiding from the rebels. There she found one of her sisters, her brother and a cousin. They realized that the only way to save their lives was to cross the border to Guinea—a heart-wrenching decision for Isiata, who had no news about her immediate family. Her husband, Musa Kabia, a math teacher, was working at the local school during the attack. Three of her children, Bakar, Abodul and Andrew, all aged 10 or younger, were also in school. Zaibna, her five-month-old baby, was home with her mother.

Four Lost Years
After one month walking over 150 miles through the bush, hiding from the rebels and eating whatever they could find, Isiata and her relatives arrived in Guinea. But their struggles continued. They did not speak the local language, and they were attacked and robbed several times.

“It was very difficult to go out of the house and we couldn’t find jobs,” Isiata recalls. They survived on money her father sent from the United States, where he had been living for two decades as a refugee.

Four years passed with no sign of Isiata’s mother, husband or children. She assumed they had been victims of war until, one day during a short trip to the city, a former neighbor from Sierra Leone recognized Isiata and rushed to tell her that her family was alive. They also had escaped to Guinea, but to a town 75 miles away.

The family’s reunion was joyful but bittersweet. Isiata had to leave for the U.S. within the week. Her father had filed for her to join him in Boston, thinking that her mother, husband and children were dead.

A New Start, New Hope
Isiata arrived in Massachusetts on June 13, 2005. “The first days were very hard because of the language and because I did not have a job,” she says. With the help of case workers from the International Rescue Committee’s Boston office, she attended English classes and found a job at Dunkin Donuts. “IRC took care of us,” she says, referring to her fellow refugees. “They paid for our rent, our food. They gave us shoes, clothes and medical help. I am very thankful to them for doing that.”

Isiata calls her children in Freetown, Sierra Leone, at least once a week, but she misses them every day. “‘Mom, come be with us,’ my kids say every time we talk.”

For now, Isiata travels everywhere with her family’s photographs. She hopes to find a job with a better salary so she can send more money home to pay for her children’s education. Her goal is to make enough money to fulfill her oldest son’s dream of becoming a doctor.

The IRC will help Isiata in every possible way to bring her family together once again.
 

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