Thousands were maimed or killed during the civil war

The Commission will take testimony from some 700 victims and participants in Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war which ended in 2001.

But the body has not been given the power to grant amnesties.

It will be chaired by a Bishop and will sit for three months, with hearings in the capital and in the provinces.

The commission hearings are taking place at the same time as early indictments at a special UN war crimes court.

A BBC correspondent has described the commission as an ambitious attempt to end the vicious cycle that characterises politics across much of Africa.

Healing of trauma

Tens of thousands of people were killed, maimed or tortured during the conflict - most by rebels of the Revolutionary United Front.

At the inauguration of the commission last year, the country's elected president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah said that the commission will be part of a healing process.

If they don't say sorry, well, I'll leave them to God Female victim

"The guns may be silent, but the trauma of the war lingers on."

A female victim of the war told the BBC that her torturers took her baby from her back and threw the infant into the bush.

"My brother tried to stop them. He said they have done bad thing. But because he talked, they killed him.

"They took a knife and cut his neck. Then they cut out his heart and gave it to me. I had to hold it until we got to the village.

Many

"At the village they ordered me to eat his heart. But one of the rebel leaders took mercy," she told the BBC's World Today programme.

The search for truth is likely to open some very deep wounds, but some victims have said that if the perpetrators are willing to ask for forgiveness they would in turn be prepared to forgive in the interest of peace.

"But if they don't say sorry, well, I'll leave them to God," said another.