Liberian Government Involved in Deaths of Officials, Families Say
News of their husbands’ deaths came to Cynthia Yormie and Suzana Vaye in a simple sentence, uttered by a concerned community leader. Yormie and Vaye had spent almost two weeks seeking the whereabouts of their spouses, deputy ministers who hadn’t been heard from since June 5 after having been detained by state security officials. So a community elder went to the government seeking information. “Your husbands are no more,” the elder said when he returned. The government will not discuss the case, but the distraught widows said at this point all they want is the bodies of John Yormie, the deputy minister of national security, and Isaac Vaye, deputy minister for technical services. “We have not been told what killed them or how they died,” said Sonkarley Beaie, a spokesman for the families. “We all know that [the government] is involved, but it’s difficult to say the government did it.” Full Story