“Tears of the sun” is based on real events: the explanation of the film with Bruce Willis

Bruce Willis is currently diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. Even his wife has asked the paparazzi for space after the first pictures of the actor with this terrible disease came out.

But in 2003 he starred in one of his most memorable films, ‘Tears of the sun’. Its plot follows Lt. Waters (Bruce Willis), a SEAL veteran who must rescue Dr. Lena Kendrick (Monica Bellucci) from a troubled region in Africa.

But the mission is complicated when the doctor refuses to leave the area unless her patients go with her. This is how the officer has to choose between following the orders of his superiors or helping all these people.

• You can also watch Bruce Willis in “Fire with Fire” for free on ViX

The True Story Behind ‘Tears of the Sun’

Although the story of the veteran who has to save the doctor from “Tears of the Sun” is fictional, the war context in which the film is set happened in real life.

It is about the civil war in Nigeria, which started in 1960 after the country’s independence from Great Britain.

But with the birth of a new state came disagreements, since according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) it was made up of 60 million people and more than 300 ethnic and cultural groups.

In other words, there were many different views that did not fit together to determine the direction the new nation would take. One of the leaders of the Igbo tribe staged a coup d’état, followed by a counter-coup that caused instability throughout the country.

Thus the members of this tribe were violently persecuted, until they proclaimed the Republic of Biafra in the south, where they were the majority.

Afterwards, this area remained under the control of federal forces, but this did not prevent 3 million people from losing their lives over the course of a decade.

“Tears of the sun”: the crisis in Nigeria today

Although “Tears of the Sun” was released in 2003 and the civil war in Nigeria took place in the 1960s, this African country is still in crisis today.

The film directed by Antoine Fuqua revealed a reality that people in Nigeria still experience: being forced to leave their homes in search of a safer life.

Since 2009, as a result of the Boko Haram (a jihadist terrorist group) insurgency, more than 3.4 million people from the Lake Chad Basin region have been displaced, according to UNHCR.

The crisis has unleashed other problems, such as hunger and malnutrition, which have increased as a result of armed conflict in the region.

In this sense, although “Tears of the Sun” is a film from years ago, it tragically shows the reality that thousands of people continue to experience every day.

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