In his book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah, now 26 years old, tells a riveting story. 

In 1991, at the age of 12, Beah fled attacking rebels in his home country of Sierra Leone. By 13, he had been picked up by the government army and was forced to fight and kill on their behalf. Eventually Beah ended up in a UNICEF rehabilitation centre for child soldiers, where he struggled to regain his humanity and re-enter the world of civilians, who viewed him with fear and suspicion.

Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He moved to the United States in 1998 and finished his last two years of high school at the United Nations International School in New York. In 2004, he graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor’s degree in political science.

According to Beah, now a UNICEF spokesperson for children affected by war, there may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers in more than 50 conflicts around the world.