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Sierra Leone is a small country found on the west coast of Africa. The country shares a border with the Atlantic Ocean, Liberia, and Guinea. Sierra Leone has a population of 5,525,000 people, and 27,699 square miles of land. In 1462 Freetown, Sierra Leone was founded by Pedro da Cintra, a Portuguese explorer from Lagos, Portugal. da Cintra originally named the country Sierra Lyoa , the Lion Mountains, but in 1787 the British officially adopted Sierra Lyoa changing its name to its modern day spelling- Sierra Leone. This small country has faced many horrors within its history. The Sierra Leone civil war is a major contributing factor to the country’s current state of poverty and corruption. Most problems that the country faces today all stem

In a study done by Catherine Bolten 2002, the civilians living in Makeni, Sierra Leone, describe their relationship with the ex-combatants of the Revolutionary

Sierra Leone is a country located on the west coast of Africa in between present day Guinea and Liberia. To the left is an image Sierra Leone and its bay depicted on a map. Sierra Leone was only discovered by the Europeans in the 15th century and at that point it was only a small Portuguese colony based around the slave trade and some timber export. There are about 16 ethnicities in Sierra Leone with two major groups, those being the Temne and the Mende. (Ross, 2002)

For eleven years, civil war desecrated the infrastructure throughout the small African nation of Sierra Leone. Tens of thousands were killed, and human suffering was widespread. More than a decade of constant fighting between the government and relentless rebels left the country in ruins. Roads were destroyed, bridges burned, buildings left in shambles, and the power supply nearly eliminated. The United Nations intervened, and assisted the government of Sierra Leone in establishing peace and setting up fair and honest, multi-party elections. The new government has since struggled in rebuilding the war-torn nation. More than half of Sierra Leoneans live in poverty, and nearly half are food insecure. Years of food shortages left nearly a third

I began my research by looking into how long the war was. Starting in the year 1991 the RUF was formed by guerrilla units joining with dissidents from around Sierra Leone. The war was then declared over in 2002 in a statement after the reelection of Kabbah in freetown. “On May 15, 2001, the Sierra Leone government and the rebels once again agreed to stop fighting and began to disarm… By the beginning of 2002, disarmament was complete. This time there was no blanket amnesty.” (Sierra Leone: Lasting Peace or Cruel Mirage?) To fuel a war for two decades there needed to be a source of income. Looking into it, Sierra Leone was rich in diamonds. Not only did they produce diamonds, there were, “One of the world’s largest producers of diamonds, the country is also rich in such minerals as chrome, bauxite, iron ore, and rutile.” (Funk and Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia). These minerals were used to fuel the rebels with guns and ammunition that were shown prominently throughout the country. They also found loopholes to getting weaponry like abusing the disarmament system. They would get money for turning in their guns and in exchange get the equivalence of 300 US dollars. However this usually resulted in the money being used for buying better weaponry. “..many rebels have turned in their guns during disarmament proceedings, only to use the US$300 they were given for obsolete weapons to buy newer and

Sierra Leone is a small country on the west coast of Africa, whose level of development has been greatly impacted on by internal and external factors. Sierra Leone has a very low level of development with a HDI of 0.374 giving it a rank of 183/187. They currently have a population of 6 million people and a GDP of $2 100. The adult literacy rates vary from male to female, at 58.7% to 37.7% respectively. A recent civil war lasting from 1991-2001, stemming from a colonial history with the occupation by the British has left the country in tatters. Just last year the Ebola epidemic broke out in West Africa and devastated the country. Sierra Leone's low level of development has been made worse by these events and has stunted it's ability to grow.

One of the initial major Pan-African events Lemelle introduced was the creation of Sierra Leone’s “Province of Freedom” along with the founding of Liberia. These two “ex-slave

Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, stated in a conference, “I was one of those children forced into fighting at the age of 13, in my country Sierra Leone, a war that claimed the lives of my mother, father and two brothers. I know too well the emotional, psychological and physical burden that comes with being exposed to violence as a child or at any age for that matter,” (Brainy Quotes). He grew up during the civil war in 1991, when the Revolutionary United Front (R.U.F.) attempted to overthrow the government. The R.U.F. took control of eastern and southern Sierra Leone territories that were rich in diamonds. In order to purchase weapons and ammunitions, the R.U.F. would enslave villages and use the citizens

The impact on Africa that the war over conflict diamonds has caused has affected Africa both positively and negatively. By July of 1999, the violence had greatly risen, which had caused the government of Sierra Leone to sign a peace agreement with the R.U.F. that “legitimized the R.U.F. and brought it into the government with several cabinet positions.” (Brown 2). Sadly, the R.U.F was only interested in keeping control over the diamond mines in Kono and Tongo. As a

In 1991, a struggle for political control of Sierra Leone broke out that would change the face of the country in ways that could never be anticipated. Due to several factors, including colonialism, inequities and greed caused by the presence of diamonds, and structural inadequacies there was a sense of discontent among many people (“War-Related Sexual Violence” 15-9). As a result, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) invaded after training in Liberia, in an attempt to overthrow the incumbent government (Park 317). Because of their extensive combatant training and determination, the RUF took Sierra Leone by force and was very successful in the initial stages of the war. This was especially in their dislocation of people (“War-Related

Sierra Leone is a small country in West Africa mainly known because of the bloody and vicious civill war which ended about 3 years ago.

The Sierra Leones Civil War, started in 1991 and ended in 2002.In more than a decade cities were destroyed and occupied, people displaced, women raped and children forced to become soldiers. Man were mostly used in the diamond’s mines or deployed in illegal armed forces. At the very beginning, in 1991 the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) from Liberia moved to Sierra Leone to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government. In the meanwhile, the Sierra Leone Army tried its best to protect the huge amount of diamonds’ mines. Those mines, through the illicit commerce all over the world, fuelled the RUF and the NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia) or later in the years the AFRC (Armed Forces Revolutionary Council), to support theirs military expenses with the revenues.

everybody so they created the Lome Peace Accord. The search for peace in Sierra Leone has been pursued against daunting odds (Bright, 2000). Determined to foster mutual trust and confidence between themselves (Loma the, 1999). The disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration

Sierra Leone is an African country that has recently come out of a civil war that led to the country’s severe and persistent poverty issue. Although Sierra Leone is one of the few countries that is rich in some precious natural resources such as diamonds and rare minerals, this country has been continuously dealing with poverty-related issues . Based on the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Index (HDI), Sierra Leone was listed as one of the poorest countries in the world in 2006 and remains among the world’s poorest countries, ranking 180th out of 187 countries in the HDI in 2011 . The civil war caused poverty to spread throughout Sierra Leone.

Since 1991 Sierra Leone has been accused of violation of human rights, more than 50.000 people were killed and more than 1 million was displaced. While RUF have has been accusing the Sierra Leone government of don 't use they natural and mineral resources properly and also RUF is accusing the government of corruption.