BROKEN CITY: One Heartbreaking Sight Revealed how War had Shattered Liberia

When Miatta Fahnbulleh returned to Liberia after years away, she expected to see a country scarred by civil war. She knew buildings had been destroyed and lives uprooted.

What she wasn't prepared for was a single encounter that captured the nation's heartbreak more powerfully than any ruined structure ever could.

"People had lost everything, you know. People had lost everything. I mean, they ran away from home with nothing, so everybody looked like beggars, you know. Even the highest personalities in our society..." she recalled.

Then came the moment that has stayed with her ever since.

"I remember walking down Broad Street and seeing the bishop at the time of the Episcopal Church. He was across the street and I saw him in a pair of chaliwaties. A whole bishop. A whole bishop... in a sleeveless shirt."

For Miatta, the image was almost too painful to bear.

"And I didn't want him to know that I had seen him like that. So I... until I passed."

The bishop's worn slippers and simple clothing were more than signs of poverty. They symbolised how a brutal civil war had stripped even Liberia's most respected figures of the dignity they once carried.

"That's how men and women... it's like that saying about those in high places... had been brought down so low. So low. Yeah. And there was sadness..."

For Miatta, that quiet moment on Broad Street revealed the true cost of war. The buildings could be rebuilt, but restoring the lives, dignity and spirit of a people would take far longer.