| Total population | |
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| 30,000 (estimate, as of 1984) [1] [2] | |
| Religion | |
| Islam and Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Lebanese diaspora |
| Part of a series of articles on |
| Lebanese people |
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There is a significant population of Lebanese people in Sierra Leone .
Lebanese immigrants first came to West Africa in the mid-19th century when a silk-worm crisis struck their homeland, then part of the Ottoman Empire; the first Lebanese arrived in British Sierra Leone in 1893. The first groups were Maronite Christians, but beginning in 1903, Shia Muslim Lebanese began to arrive from South Lebanon where there was an agricultural crunch. [3] They worked as small traders, at first occupying the same position in the economic structure as indigenous coastal traders. [4]
At first, they had little access to capital and little control of import or export; they were at the mercy of the large colonial merchant firms, the same as indigenous traders. [5] They brought imported manufactured goods such as textiles, jewellery, and mirrors to rural areas where European and creole traders would not go, and traded them for local agricultural produce, primary palm kernels and kola nuts. [6] As they expanded their trading interests into the interior, they gained some commercial power. However, they were blamed for a 1919 rice scarcity, and riots broke out against them in which their shops were looted. [7] Even the colonial authorities, traditionally seen as the patrons of the Lebanese, did not protect them; instead, they deported two Lebanese traders blamed for causing the shortages. This was one of the first major incidents that contributed to the Lebanese having a negative image in Sierra Leone. [8]
In the 1920s, they not only began to enjoy better access to credit, but also began to play a role themselves in extending credit to agricultural producers in the interior, sometimes at exorbitant rates which sparked the intervention of the colonial government. [9] Beginning in the 1930s, the Lebanese began to outcompete indigenous traders, by concentrating their returns from commerce back into the same sector to expand their purchases of goods, rather than diversifying into other sectors. They also began to establish their own links to exporters in other countries. [10] The worldwide Great Depression actually strengthened their position, as smaller African-owned trading enterprises were hit the hardest. [11]
During the same period, the discovery of diamonds at Kono District in 1930 sparked the beginning of a major shift in the business activities of the Lebanese. The first Lebanese trader arrived in Kono soon after the discovery of diamonds, two years ahead of the British rulers. The establishment of the Sierra Leone Selection Trust's monopoly on diamond mining and export did little to stem their involvement in the diamond trade; many Lebanese traders were deported in the 1940s for illicit diamond trading. By the 1950s, diamonds had become the most important business sector for Lebanese traders. Throughout the 1950s, they continued their diamond smuggling, mainly to Liberia; as many as 20% of diamonds on the world market may have passed through the hands of Lebanese and Mandingo traders in Sierra Leone and Liberia. [12]
However, the Lebanese are not solely active in the diamond sector; they also operate cinemas, hotels, casinos, factories, and travel agencies. From 1963 to 1971, there was even a short-lived Lebanese-owned bank, the Intra Bank. [13]
There are five key Lebanese families in Sierra Leone, who had largely consolidated their position by the 1970s; most Lebanese prominent in trade in the country and its neighbours have some connection to them. [14]
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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 is bordered by Guinea to the north. With a land area of 71,740 km2 (27,699 sq mi), Sierra Leone has a tropical climate and with a variety of environments ranging from savannas to rainforests. According to the 2015 census, Sierra Leone has a population of 7,092,113, with Freetown serving as both the capital and largest city. The country is divided into five administrative regions, which are further 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.
The Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces are the armed forces of Sierra Leone, responsible for the territorial security of Sierra Leone's borders and defending the national interests of Sierra Leone, within the framework of the 1991 Sierra Leone Constitution and International laws. The armed forces were formed after independence in 1961, on the basis of elements of the former British Royal West African Frontier Force, then present in the Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate.
The Mano River Union (MRU) is an international association initially established between Liberia and Sierra Leone by the 3 October 1973 Mano River Declaration. It is named for the Mano River which begins in the Guinea highlands and forms a border between Liberia and Sierra Leone. On 25 October 1980, Guinea joined the union.
The Mano River is a river in West Africa. It originates in the Guinea Highlands in Liberia and forms part of the Liberia-Sierra Leone border.
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 almost 11 years, and had over 50,000, up to 70,000, casualties in total; an estimated 2.5 million people were displaced during the conflict.
Brigadier David Lansana was the first prominent Sierra Leonean in the Sierra Leone Military during the colonial era. After Sierra Leone gained independence, he served as Military Attaché to the United States.
Kailahun District is a district in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. Its capital and largest city is the town of Kailahun. The second most populous city in the district is Segbwema. Other major towns in Kailahun District include Koindu, Pendembu and Daru. As of the 2015 census, the district had a population of 525,372. Kailahun District is subdivided into fourteen chiefdoms.
The Kono people are a major Mande-speaking ethnic group in Sierra Leone at 5.2% of the country's total population. Their homeland is the diamond-rich Kono District in eastern Sierra Leone. The Kono are primarily diamond miners and farmers.
Jamil Sahid Mohamed Khalil was a Sierra Leonean-Lebanese businessman, diamonds and commodities trader. He attained prominence in the diamond industry across Africa and Antwerp and became an influential figure in the politics of Sierra Leone through his close association with President Siaka Stevens. Jamil also came to dominate other business sectors including fisheries, tourism construction and aviation.
Paul Richards is an emeritus professor of technology and agrarian development at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and adjunct professor at Njala University in central Sierra Leone. He was formerly a professor in the Department of Anthropology, University College London for many years, and previously taught anthropology and geography, at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
There is a significant community of Lebanese people in Senegal. Lebanese migration to Senegal began in the late 19th century, largely motivated by economic prospects in trade and commerce. While retaining cultural ties to Lebanon and largely practicing endogamy, they've assimilated into Senegalese society, predominantly engaged in commerce. Official statistics on the Lebanese population in Senegal are absent, with estimates ranging from 15,000 to 30,000 as of 2006.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1306, adopted on 5 July 2000, after recalling all previous resolutions on the situation in Sierra Leone, particularly resolutions 1132 (1997), 1171 (1998) and 1299 (2000), the Council decided to prohibit the direct or indirect import of rough diamonds from the country. The rebel Revolutionary United Front controlled 90% of the diamond-producing areas in Sierra Leone and was using diamonds to finance its operations.
An independence referendum was held in Liberia on 27 October 1846. The result was 52% in favor, with independence being declared on 26 July 1847.
The mining industry of Sierra Leone accounted for 4.5 percent of the country's GDP in 2007 and minerals made up 79 percent of total export revenue with diamonds accounting for 46 percent of export revenue in 2008. The main minerals mined in Sierra Leone are diamonds, rutile, bauxite, gold, iron and limonite.
Yenga is a village in Kissi Teng Chiefdom, Kailahun District in the Eastern province of Sierra Leone. The village is at the international border between Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Sierra Leone is home to about sixteen ethnic groups, each with its own language. In Sierra Leone, membership of an ethnic group often overlaps with a shared religious identity.
The following lists events that happened during 2014 in Sierra Leone.
The Sierra Leone Creole people are an ethnic group of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Creole people are descendants of freed African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and Liberated African slaves who settled in the Western Area of Sierra Leone between 1787 and about 1885. The colony was established by the British, supported by abolitionists, under the Sierra Leone Company as a place for freedmen. The settlers called their new settlement Freetown. Today, the Sierra Leone Creoles are 1.2 percent of the population of Sierra Leone.
Alhaji Mohamed Bailor Barrie, simply referred to as Bailor Barrie or M.B. Barrie was a Sierra Leonean businessman, activist and philanthropist. He hailed from Sierra Leone's northern district of Koinadugu and was a member of the Fula ethnic group of which he later became a well known activist and leader. Barrie became prominent in Sierra Leone's post colonial economic environment in the 1970s as the first Fula to venture into the European-Lebanese dominated import business of motor vehicles. He became very successful in the booming diamond mining and trading industry in the 1970s and 1980s, which established him as one of Sierra Leone's most successful businessmen, even without a standard level of education. Then president of Sierra Leone Siaka Stevens was using Barrie's success to defend himself against critics attacking him for ignoring the country's crumbling educational sector, by claiming that one could be successful like Barrie without any standard level of education. Barrie died in a road accident in 1989 on his way from Kenema, in the eastern part of Sierra Leone.
