By Pewu Y. Sumo
MONROVIA –Prominent human rights lawyer and former Presidential candidate Cllr. Tiawan Saye Gongloe on Wednesday laid a wreath at the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Monrovia to honor the victims of the infamous 1990 humanitarian sanctuary massacre.
The solemn ceremony marked the 36th anniversary of the tragedy, which took place on July 29, 1990, during the height of the First Liberian Civil War.
Standing in front of the church’s memorial site on the rain-slicked pavement of the courtyard, Cllr. Gongloe held a large wreath of fresh green foliage as he addressed onlookers. He noted that the gesture was a direct tribute to the estimated 600 unarmed civilians—predominantly women, children, and men seeking refuge—who were brutally targeted and slaughtered inside the compound by government soldiers.
The event held a deeply personal weight for the prominent counselor.
“In memory of the 600 people who lost their lives here, who were killed savagely, including my own brother, David Gwangloe,” Gongloe said, before stepping forward to place the memorial wreath directly onto the site’s designated mass grave marker.
The brief commemoration concluded with a quiet religious invocation. “I lay this wreath on their grave, their mass grave, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Blessed Holy Spirit,” Gongloe intoned.
The St. Peter’s Lutheran Church massacre remains one of the most devastating single atrocities of Liberia’s civil conflict. At the time of the assault, the church compound was operating as an official Red Cross shelter, housing roughly 2,000 displaced people.
Decades later, the site stands as a stark symbol of the war’s civilian toll, with annual remembrances like Gongloe’s serving as persistent calls for historical preservation and remembrance.
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