Camara, M'Balia, 1929-1955

LC control no.	no2018170323
Descriptive conventions	rda
Personal name heading	Camara, M'Balia, 1929-1955 *Browse this term in* LC Authorities or the LC Catalog
Associated country	Guinea
Birth date	1929 1929
Death date	1955-02-08 1955-02-18
Place of birth	Pössèya (Guinea)
Place of death	Dubreka (Guinea)
Found in	Tompapa, Émile. M'Balia Camara n'a pas été assassinée, 2018: title page (M'Balia Camara) page 26 (in 1952, at age 17, was married to Tierno Kerlon, better known as "Thierno Clairon", about age 45) pages 29-30 (was a young peasant woman from Pössèya, a village in the mountains of Gonga in the Labaya region) pages 35-41 (on 31 January 1955, Forces de l'ordre arrived in Tondon and were met with resistance, and fired tear gas "grenades"; M'Balia Camara, 8 months pregnant and doing laundry with other women, ran and was hit with a fragment; she was carried to Dubréka, 140 km away, over 3 days; she was admitted to the hôpital Ballay (now hôpital Ignace Deen) on 3 February 1955; she died during surgery on 8 February 1955, and was buried the next afternoon; her death was used as propaganda by the RDA party, and she was called a national heroine and martyr; local chief Almamy David Sylla was made the scapegoat, and went into exile in Dakar) Nofi media (website), M'Balia Camara, martyre de l'indépendance guinéenne, 25 février 2017, viewed December 11, 2018 (born in 1929 in Posséah, in what was then the administrative region of Dubréka (current République de Guinée); worked beside her husband, Thierno Camara, on behalf of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA); active in the sub-section of the RDA in Tondon, 180 km from Conakry, him directing it, and her in charge of the Comité des femmes; on 8 February 1955, the local canton chief, Almamy David Sylla, who had acted against the RDA, drew the ire of villagers over tax collection, and returned to Tondon the next day with armed colonial police; 37 villagers were wounded; Sylla forced his way into the house of Thierno Camara and opened her stomach with a sabre; hospitalized in Conakry, she delivered (stillborn) on 11 February and died 18 February 1955, age 26; thousands attended her burial)