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Sierra Leone,officially the Republic of Sierra Leone,is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It shares its southeastern border with Liberia,and the northern half of the nation is surrounded by Guinea. Covering a total area of 71,740 km2 (27,699 sq mi),Sierra Leone has a tropical climate,with diverse environments ranging from savanna to rainforests. The country has a population of 7,092,113 as of the 2015 census. Freetown is the capital and largest city. The country is divided into five administrative regions,which are subdivided into 16 districts.
Sierra Leone first became inhabited by indigenous African peoples at least 2,500 years ago. The Limba were the first tribe known to inhabit Sierra Leone. The dense tropical rainforest partially isolated the region from other West African cultures,and it became a refuge for peoples escaping violence and jihads. Sierra Leone was named by Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra,who mapped the region in 1462. The Freetown estuary provided a good natural harbour for ships to shelter and replenish drinking water,and gained more international attention as coastal and trans-Atlantic trade supplanted trans-Saharan trade.
Foday Saybana Sankoh was the founder of the Sierra Leone rebel group Revolutionary United Front (RUF),which was supported by Charles Taylor-led NPFL in the 11-year-long Sierra Leone Civil War,starting in 1991 and ending in 2002. An estimated 50,000 people were killed during the war,and over 500,000 people were displaced in neighboring countries.
The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) was a rebel group that fought a failed eleven-year war in Sierra Leone,beginning in 1991 and ending in 2002. It later transformed into a political party,which still exists today. The three most senior surviving leaders,Issa Sesay,Morris Kallon and Augustine Gbao,were convicted in February 2009 of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was a Sierra Leonean politician who served twice as the 3rd President of Sierra Leone,from 1996 to 1997 and again from 1998 to 2007. An economist and attorney by profession,Kabbah spent many years working for the United Nations Development Programme. He retired from the United Nations and returned to Sierra Leone in 1992.
Major Johnny Paul Koroma was a Sierra Leonean military officer who was the head of state of Sierra Leone from May 1997 to February 1998.
Valentine Esegragbo Melvine Strasser is a former Sierra Leonean military officer who served as head of state of Sierra Leone from 1992 to 1996. He became the world's youngest Head of State in 1992,seizing power three days after his 25th birthday.
Major General Joseph Saidu Momoh,OOR,OBE was a Sierra Leonean politician and military officer who served as the second President of Sierra Leone from November 1985 to 29 April 1992.
The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) was a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone from 1999 to 2006. It was created by the United Nations Security Council in October 1999 to help with the implementation of the LoméPeace Accord,an agreement intended to end the Sierra Leonean civil war. UNAMSIL expanded in size several times in 2000 and 2001. It concluded its mandate at the end of 2005,the Security Council having declared that its mission was complete.
Operation Barras was a British Army operation that took place in Sierra Leone on 10 September 2000,during the late stages of the nation's civil war. The operation aimed to release five British soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment and their Sierra Leone Army (SLA) liaison officer,who were being held by a militia group known as the "West Side Boys". The soldiers were part of a patrol that was returning from a visit to Jordanian peacekeepers attached to the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) at Masiaka on 25 August 2000 when they turned off the main road and down a track towards the village of Magbeni. There the patrol of twelve men was overwhelmed by a large number of heavily armed rebels,taken prisoner,and transported to Gberi Bana on the opposite side of Rokel Creek.
The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) was a group of Sierra Leone soldiers that allied itself with the rebel Revolutionary United Front in the late 1990s. While the AFRC briefly controlled the country in 1998,it was driven from the capital by an international military intervention of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). It was no longer a coherent and effective organization by the elections of 2002.
The Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002),or the Sierra Leonean Civil War,was a civil war in Sierra Leone that began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF),with support from the special forces of Liberian dictator Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL),intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government. The resulting civil war lasted 11 years,enveloping the country. It left over 50,000 dead.
Samuel Sam Bockarie,widely known as Mosquito,was a Sierra Leonean politician and army commander who served as a leader of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Bockarie was infamous during the Sierra Leone Civil War for his brutal tactics,which included amputation,mutilation,and rape. He earned the nickname "Mosquito" for his ability to attack when his enemies were off-guard,mainly during the night. During his service in the RUF,he befriended future Liberian president Charles Taylor,and RUF commander Foday Sankoh. When Sankoh was imprisoned from March 1997 until April 1999,Bockarie served as commander of the RUF in his place.
Freetown International Airport (officially),locally known as Lungi International Airport,is an international airport located in the coastal town of Lungi,Sierra Leone. It is the only international airport in Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone River separates the airport from Freetown,the nation's capital city.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1313,adopted unanimously on 4 August 2000,after recalling all previous resolutions on the situation in Sierra Leone,the Council extended the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) until 8 September 2000 and expressed its intention to review the mission's mandate based on recommendations.
Neall Ellis is a South African military aviator and mercenary. Raised in Bulawayo,he joined the South African Air Force after a brief stint in the Rhodesian Army. As a helicopter pilot he was awarded the Honoris Crux decoration in 1983,and later attained field rank. After retiring from the SAAF he contracted for various private military corporations,including Executive Outcomes and Sandline International. During the civil war in Sierra Leone,he and his Mi-24 crew held off Revolutionary United Front (RUF) forces almost single-handedly. He also provided fire support for British troops during Operation Barras.
The United Kingdom began a military intervention in Sierra Leone on 7 May 2000 under the codename Operation Palliser. Although small numbers of British personnel had been deployed previously,Palliser was the first large-scale intervention by British forces in the Sierra Leone Civil War. In early May 2000,the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)—one of the main parties to the civil war—advanced on the country's capital,Freetown,prompting the British government to dispatch an "Operational Reconnaissance and Liaison Team" (ORLT) to prepare to evacuate foreign citizens. On 6 May,the RUF blocked the road connecting Freetown to the country's main airport,Lungi. The next day,British soldiers began to secure the airport and other areas essential to an evacuation. The majority of those who wished to leave were evacuated within the first two days of the operation,but many chose to stay following the arrival of British forces.
Peter Alfred Penfold was a British diplomat who was the youngest governor of the British Virgin Islands and was High Commissioner to the Republic of Sierra Leone. His career began in 1963,when he joined the Foreign Service as a clerical officer. Two years into his career,he was posted to the British embassy in Bonn,West Germany,and two years after that to Nigeria. From 1970 to 1972,Penfold served as a "floater" in Latin America,filling in as necessary for staff at British missions in the region. He served in Mexico during the 1970 football world cup,and on St Vincent,where he was responsible for organising an evacuation after a volcanic eruption. After Latin America,Penfold briefly served in Canberra,before returning to London to take a post in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). He earned early promotion to second secretary in Addis Ababa,Ethiopia,where he was responsible for reporting on the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Eritrean War of Independence and was still in the country during the revolution,in which the pro-Western emperor was overthrown. After completing his tour in Ethiopia,Penfold served as information officer in Port of Spain and then as first secretary in the West Africa Department of the FCO.
The Lungi Lol confrontation was a confrontation between British forces and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone on 17 May 2000.
The United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) was a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone from 1998 to 1999 that was established with the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1181. Its mission was to monitor the military and security situation in Sierra Leone. The mission was terminated in October 1999,when the Security Council authorized deployment of a new,and significantly larger peacekeeping operation,the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL).