Survivors of the 2009 Guinea Stadium Massacre pay tribute to the dead

In 2009, more than 150 people were killed at Conakry’s football stadium when a peaceful opposition protest was attacked by the ruling junta’s elite police. In the crackdown that followed, “officers of the law” allegedly raped and assaulted many more on the streets of Conakry.

Over 100 women were raped and hundreds of people were injured on that fateful September 28.

Oumou Kaba photographed in the house where she lives with her children after being abandoned by her husband, who left her when he found out she had been raped at the stadium on 28 September 2009. 

She said: ‘I can’t say much about that date. What I know is that my life changed for the worse. I am not in good health and I am responsible for all of my children. I want justice to be done so that the truth come to light.’

It’s already 7 years since that incident but it seems like yesterday. Survivors who lived to tell the tales, will never forget suffering bloody violence from a government who should protect lives and property.

Thousands of people sustained injuries and many of them still live with the trauma.

With the help of some local and international human rights agencies, the survivors are relentlessly fighting for the government to accept liability for what happened.

Photographer Tommy Trenchard has been documenting their stories.

Seven years after the massacre at the Conakry national stadium on 28 September 2009, human rights organisations are paying tribute to the thousands of people caught up in Guinea’s state violence.

The international human rights organisation FIDH , in partnership with a Guinean NGO, invited photographer Tommy Trenchard to capture images of survivors at the scene of their attack.

Here, a woman stands close to where she was arrested and abused by security forces: ‘I want justice to be done because the impunity for soldiers in Guinea is continuing and the state cannot provide security to its citizens.’