Celebrated photographer T Y Bello shared this photo on her IG page with a powerful message;
Last year I got to spend time with Nigerian soldiers in the North East. It wasn't just the images I made of them that stayed with me .. but the fact that I got to ride in their convoy.. in this short time I tried to imagine what it felt like to be a soldier ..to experience that haunting feeling in my gut I haven't been able to make disappear .. the echoes of the past .. it's almost as if the blood of the slain cry out from ground . Literally...The sound of it was deep and sustained ..creating this heaviness at the bottom of my belly .I still feel it when I look at the of abandoned landscapes we drove through.
The roads soldiers travel are lonely ones...uncertain and there's always a sense of danger... and hope .. that the mission will be accomplished and soon they get to embrace their loved ones again. Fear that death doesn't guarantee your name in the pages of history..that people move on with their lives.. like your ultimate sacrifice wasn't in their name.
Sometimes these landscapes the last things they see . I was shocked to read that some of our men were ambushed on this same road we travelled on afterwards. .. it saddened me to know its had happened countless times before .. and sometimes not getting our attention in the news ..
I've become friends with some of these soldiers .. it's always good to communicate and see how they're doing . Listening in awe as they share stories from their battles .
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