Sadly, Abu Barka Karyba seemed emotionless when he visited his wife Rugata just after she gave birth to their son Alan. Abu Barka Karyba had no hands. He could neither touch nor hold his son. His hands had been hacked off with a machete by members of the Revolutionary United Front. It made him another victim in the litany of such caught in Sierra Leone's vicious eight-year war.
Last December the RUF renewed its offensive against the country's democratically elected government. In January, already controlling much of Sierra Leone, the rebels, in a murderous wave, swept into the capital, Freetown, slaughtering 5,000 civilians and displacing 150,000.
Its terror campaign included amputations, shootings, house-burnings and rapes. And the traumatised city lives in constant fear of it happening again.
When I was there for three days a fortnight ago, Connaught Hospital overflowed with victims; pitiful people with bandaged stumps where a limb once was. The dressings on some were clinical white; others were stained garishly red and yellow.
Les Bintu pulled back a bedsheet to show what was left of the left leg of his nine-year-old daughter, Amara. It ended at the knee in a bloody, bandaged stump. He explained it had to be amputated because of the ferocity of the gunshot wounds. Amara was initially embarrassed at the attention, and was rapidly overcome by a listlessness born of the pain and exhaustion ubiquitous there.
In the suburb of Kissy, 80 per cent of property was razed. People trudged past seemingly unending rows of burned vehicles, hauling what little they had. Many are fleeing murder for the second or third time.
Some go to the National Stadium, where 15,000 people huddle under terraced seats. As the city's 5.30 p.m. curfew approaches, there is wary anticipation as the stadium's occupants wait to see what food, if any, returning family members have scavanged.
Others go to the National Workshop, a former mechanics' training centre. The three gloomy sheds filled with heavy industrial machinery, oily chains, pulleys and gangways, gives more than 21,000 people a "home".
The workshop has no toilets. There are two water taps for everyone. Families position stones and old rusty bolts to establish the perimeters of their space. Two families sat in and around what is now home - a damp and putrid car-maintenance pit. Sickness is everywhere in the workshop. Mothers hold out babies to show wounds and infections. A young man explains his fear of the rats at night.
Thousands more Sierra Leoneans are trying to get out, anticipating a bloodbath if Nigeria pulls its troops from ECOMOG, the which is in Sierra Leone to support the government, but which the rebels see as occupiers.
Only a tiny minority can afford the $200 one-way helicopter journey to nearby Conakry, capital of Guinea. Most of those who do get out walk, or travel crammed in small vehicles.
Pamelap, in neighbouring Guinea, once an untroubled border town, is swamped by thousands of displaced persons. Some have found harbour in refugee camps, but more live in cars or on any vacant piece of earth available. The population of the Sierra Leonean town of Kambia fled here during an RUF attack.
People are confused; relieved to be alive but still terrified. What is to stop the RUF - reported to be very near - just three miles away - from crossing the border, a 10-foot piece of green string between two posts?
The priorities, say Concern aid workers who are assisting Sierra Leone's displaced and besieged, is the provision of food, shelter, health, water and sanitary facilities. They believe, in the long term, the main hope for a solution to the horrendous conflict is the intervention of a friendly, neutral state to broker peace.
Bryan O'Brien travelled to Sierra Leone with Concern Worldwide
