🇸🇱 Sierra Leone

Iron working had been taken up by the 9th century, with settled agriculture established along the coast by around 1000 AD. These shifts underpinned population growth and the migration and conquest dynamics that shaped the region's ethnic map.

The Portuguese explorer charted the coastline and named it 'lioness mountains', a name later rendered in Venetian spelling by Alvise Cadamosto and adopted by European mapmakers. This marked the beginning of sustained European interaction with the region and fixed the country's enduring name.

Susu merchants and migrants brought Islam, which eventually established a strong foothold in the north. Later conquest by Samory Touré in the northeast consolidated the faith among the Yalunka, Kuranko and Limba peoples.

Some 411 passengers sailed from Plymouth in April 1787 and about 400 black and 60 white colonists reached Sierra Leone on 15 May 1787, establishing Granville Town under the Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme. Disease and conflict with the Temne reduced the settlement drastically, and a second Granville Town was founded by the 64 survivors.

In 1792 the heads of all households, a third of whom were women, were given the vote, and settlers elected tithingmen and hundreders as representatives. This degree of political autonomy anticipated later women's suffrage movements in Britain and was unavailable in Nova Scotia.

Nearly 1,200 Black Loyalists, organised by Thomas Peters and John Clarkson through the Sierra Leone Company, landed on 11 March 1792 to build the only permanent Colony of Sierra Leone. The Nova Scotian Settlers laid the foundations of Freetown and of the Krio people and language.

Settlers rose against the London-controlled company's refusal to grant freehold land. The Crown suppressed the revolt by importing more than 500 Jamaican Maroons in 1800, who were rewarded with the best houses and farms.

More than 500 Maroons under Colonel Montague James arrived and helped colonial forces put down the settlers' revolt. They became a founding component of the Krio ethnicity alongside the Nova Scotians and Liberated Africans.

Peter Hartwig and Melchior Renner arrived as the first CMS missionaries in Sierra Leone. Their schools introduced Western education, laying the basis for Sierra Leone's role as an educational centre of British West Africa.

Following the Slave Trade Act 1807, naval crews delivered recaptives freed from illegal slave ships to Freetown, where each was registered. Sold as apprentices and forced to assimilate, they became successful traders, spread Christianity in West Africa and intermarried with Settlers and Maroons to form the Krio people.

On 1 January 1808 Governor Thomas Ludlam surrendered the Sierra Leone Company's charter to the Crown after 16 years of company rule, and the Crown reorganised the venture as the African Institution. The coastal Sierra Leone Colony thus passed to direct British control as a crown colony, serving as a resettlement destination after the abolition of the slave trade and as a base for Royal Navy patrols against the Atlantic slave trade.

Founded in 1827, the college was for more than a century the only European-style university in west Sub-Saharan Africa and drew students from across British West Africa. It made Freetown known as the 'Athens of Africa' and remains the oldest university in West Africa.

The force established in 1894 is one of the oldest police forces in West Africa. It became the core civil security institution, later absorbing the paramilitary SSD under President Momoh.

Following the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 and the doctrine of 'effective occupation', Britain annexed the inland areas in 1896 and recognised paramount chiefs as units of local government. This created the country's modern territorial configuration but pushed Krio people out of government posts and undermined chiefly sovereignty.

Colonel Frederic Cardew's tax on dwellings and forced road labour provoked armed resistance on northern and southern fronts after 24 chiefs petitioned in vain. Bureh surrendered on 11 November 1898, 96 of his warriors were hanged and he was exiled to the Gold Coast, ending mass resistance to colonial rule though unrest persisted.

Separate political systems were created for coastal Freetown and the chief-dominated hinterland. The resulting antagonism dominated politics until the 1947 proposals for a single system, opposed by the Krios under Isaac Wallace-Johnson.

Slavery still practised by local African elites was formally ended in 1928. This completed the legal dismantling of slavery over a century after the colony's foundation as a haven for freed Africans.

The SLBS was the earliest English-language radio broadcaster service in West Africa. It began television broadcasting in 1963 and extended coverage to all districts by 1978.

The De Beers-run trust received exclusive rights to mineral mining. Diamond mining in the east and other extraction expanded, drawing labour migration from across the country and shaping the economy's dependence on minerals.

Founded as the party of the Protectorate, the SLPP under Sir Milton Margai united educated Protectorate elites with paramount chiefs. It negotiated with Britain and Krio interests for independence and has dominated politics alongside the APC ever since.

The constitution merged the separate legislatures and set a framework for decolonisation within a Commonwealth parliamentary system. In 1953 Sierra Leone gained local ministerial powers and Margai was elected Chief Minister.

The SLPP won the most seats and Milton Margai was re-elected Chief Minister by a landslide. The vote consolidated Protectorate-based political dominance ahead of independence.

The armed forces were formed at independence from the Sierra Leone Battalion of the British Royal West African Frontier Force. This gave the young state its own national defence institution, later renamed on becoming a republic.

On 27 April 1961 Sierra Leone became independent from the United Kingdom as a Dominion with its own parliament, prime minister and law-making powers, with Queen Elizabeth as head of state and membership of the Commonwealth. Milton Margai, who had led the country through internal self-government since 1958, became its first prime minister; opposition APC leader Siaka Stevens and Isaac Wallace-Johnson were arrested and placed under house arrest at the time.

The SLPP won a plurality and Milton Margai was re-elected prime minister. His brokerage politics shared power among parties, interest groups and paramount chiefs, resting on rule of law and separation of powers.

Appointed by parliament on Milton Margai's death in 1964, Albert Margai purged officials, legislated against the APC and sought a one-party state. He alienated Creoles and paramount chiefs and was accused of favouring the Mende, provoking riots in Freetown in 1967 and a state of emergency.

The APC narrowly won the 1967 election and Stevens was sworn in on 21 March, only to be placed under house arrest within hours by the army commander. A counter-coup on 23 March by Brigadier Andrew Juxon-Smith suspended the constitution and installed the National Reformation Council, beginning a cycle of military intervention in politics.

On 18 April 1968 low-ranking soldiers led by Brigadier General John Amadu Bangura toppled the National Reformation Council, arrested its senior members and reinstated the constitution. Siaka Stevens finally assumed the office of prime minister, though he later had Bangura tried and executed.

Unrest in the provinces following the return to civilian rule prompted a nationwide emergency. A further emergency was declared in September 1970 against an alleged officers' plot, marking the drift towards authoritarian rule.

Parliament adopted a new constitution on 19 April 1971, replacing the queen as head of state with an executive president, a role assumed by prime minister Siaka Stevens.

After the failed 1971 coup, Stevens's close alliance with Guinean president Ahmed Sékou Touré produced a defence pact and the deployment of Guinean troops to protect his government. The troops remained until 1974, and there was even talk of unification between the two countries.

The 23 March 1971 attempt collapsed and Bangura and many plotters were executed, with dozens of soldiers court-martialled in Freetown. Among those jailed was army corporal Foday Sankoh, who later founded the Revolutionary United Front.

Complaints of intimidation and procedural obstruction by the APC and militia in the 1972 by-elections led the opposition to withdraw from the 1973 poll. The APC won 84 of the 85 elected seats, effectively ending competitive politics.

The 1978 constitution made the APC the sole legal political party, following a student demonstration in 1977 crushed by the army and Stevens's Special Security Division. Further protests against the change were also suppressed, entrenching two decades of single-party authoritarian rule.

Until 1979 the Republic of Sierra Leone Military Force had been a single-service organisation. The creation of a navy began the diversification of the armed forces, followed by the Air Wing and Defence Headquarters in 1995.

Stevens retired in November 1985 and the APC named the armed forces head Momoh as sole candidate; he was sworn in on 28 November. Momoh integrated the SSD into the police and campaigned rhetorically against corruption, but was criticised for perpetuating Stevens's rule.

The finance ministry and the Petroleum Regulatory Agency said the increase from 3 August 2026 reflected international fuel costs and the exchange rate, with diesel rising to 40 leones a litre. The government said a subsidy would keep pump prices below the full cost.

Bio told parliament on 8 August 2026 that the attorney-general had dropped the charge stemming from the November 2023 coup attempt, when gunmen attacked barracks and prisons and freed nearly 2,000 inmates. He said the move was intended to reduce political tensions and aid reconciliation.

Regional leaders meeting on 19 July 2026 named Senegal's Bassirou Diomaye Faye as the bloc's new chairman, succeeding President Bio, who had held the rotating role since June 2025.

Announced on 27 July 2026 at a Freetown paediatric centre, the initiative was intended to move patient records onto digital systems and support disease surveillance, online training and emergency response across the health service.

The first flight carrying migrants removed under the Trump administration's crackdown landed on 21 May 2026, as Freetown sought to avoid further American visa and travel restrictions.

The agreement, concluded on 22 April 2026, allowed the company to carry out geological and geophysical surveys across blocks covering 26,000 square kilometres of Sierra Leone's Atlantic waters.

The soldiers were held from 22 February 2026 near Koudaya in Guinea's Faranah region before being released on 27 February after talks between the two governments.

The commemoration on 18 January 2026 honoured those killed in the 1991-2002 civil war, more than two decades after the conflict ended and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission completed its work.

Troops from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana were sent within 18 hours of the 7 December 2025 attempt to overthrow President Talon, backed by French logistical support.

A proclamation signed by President Trump on 16 December 2025 added Sierra Leone to a widened list of 39 countries facing US entry restrictions, part of a broader tightening of visa policy.

The complex, comprising the Gola Rainforest National Park and the Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary in the eastern and southern provinces, was recognised for exceptional biodiversity. The listing raised the international profile of Sierra Leone's conservation estate.

The election filled the 135 elected seats of the 149-seat unicameral parliament, with the SLPP taking 81 and the APC 54; 14 seats are reserved for paramount chiefs. The 2023 census also recorded a population of 8,460,512.

Demonstrations triggered by the cost of living crisis led to a nationwide curfew. Thirty-three people died, comprising 27 civilians and 6 police officers.

The former NPRC junta leader returned to power through the ballot box in March 2018. Parliament was inaugurated amid a police intervention.

The closure of the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL) in March 2014 marked the end of more than fifteen years of peacekeeping and political operations in the country. The government's priorities now include furthering development, creating jobs and stamping out endemic corruption.

The West African Ebola epidemic, first detected in Sierra Leone in May 2014, overwhelmed the health system and prompted a national state of public emergency; by 19 October 2014 it had caused 3,706 cases and 1,259 deaths, including that of leading physician Sheik Umar Khan, and it ultimately killed nearly 4,000 people in one of the world's worst outbreaks. Border closures, cancelled flights, evacuation of foreign workers and collapsing cross-border trade widened the national deficit to the point where the IMF considered expanding support, while international responders helped bring transmission to an end by early 2016.

The military remained on the sidelines during the 2007 and 2012 national elections and has deployed over 850 peacekeepers in the African Union Mission in Somalia, with a further 122 staff serving in five UN peacekeeping missions as of January 2014 — a sign of its development as a guarantor of stability.

The 2007 and 2012 polls consolidated competitive party politics after the civil war. Koroma's election signalled a period of stability and recovery.

Following the departure of UN peacekeepers at the end of 2005, the national armed forces assumed full responsibility for security, and democracy has slowly been re-established since.

The act transferred responsibility for water supply outside the capital from central government to local councils. It formed part of post-war reconstruction of the state's administrative capacity.

The gesture recognised the contribution of the Bangladesh UN Peacekeeping Force during the civil war under the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone. It was a symbolic acknowledgement of foreign peacekeeping support in restoring the state.

President Kabbah announced the end of the conflict on 18 January 2002, almost eleven years after it began, and a UN-backed Special Court was subsequently established to try those bearing greatest responsibility for war crimes.

Around 1,000 UK troops deployed from May 2000 in Operation Palliser, initially to evacuate foreign nationals but exceeding that mandate to secure Freetown, support UN peacekeepers against rebel advances and restore order. The intervention is credited with turning the course of the conflict and acting as the catalyst for the ceasefire that ended the civil war, after which British soldiers, administrators and politicians remained to train the armed forces, rebuild infrastructure and provide aid.

Certification of exports was put in place in 2000 and produced a dramatic increase in legal diamond exports. In 2001 the government created a mining community development fund returning a share of export taxes to diamond-mining communities.

The UN agreed in October 1999 to send a force, the first of 6,000 arriving in December and later expanded to 11,000 and then 13,000. In May 2000 Sankoh's forces clashed with the peacekeepers and took some 500 hostage, collapsing the peace accord and prompting Operation Khukri.

After nine months of junta rule, West African intervention forces removed the AFRC-RUF government and reinstated the elected president. On 19 October 1998, 24 soldiers were executed by firing squad after courts martial over the 1997 coup.

On 25 May 1997 seventeen soldiers loyal to Johnny Paul Koroma drove Kabbah into exile in Guinea and installed Koroma as head of state. The junta suspended the constitution, shut private radio and invited the RUF into government with Sankoh as vice-chairman, while Kamajor militia under Samuel Hinga Norman defended the south.

On 16 January 1996 fellow NPRC soldiers arrested Strasser at Defence Headquarters and flew him into exile in Conakry. Bio stated his motivations were returning the country to elected civilian government and ending the war.

Following the Bintumani I and II national consultative conferences, which resolved the 'peace before elections' debate in favour of an early poll, elections were held in early 1996 and won by Kabbah of the SLPP. Kabbah immediately opened peace talks with RUF leader Foday Sankoh.

With the RUF controlling much of the diamond-rich Eastern Province and nearing Freetown, the junta engaged several hundred South Africa-based private military contractors. Within a month they drove the rebels back to border enclaves and cleared the Kono diamond areas.

A plot on 28 December 1992 to free detained officers was uncovered and its alleged organisers shot by firing squad. Prominent detained members of the Momoh government, including former police chief Bambay Kamara, were also executed.

On 29 April 1992 young army officers led by 25-year-old Captain Valentine Strasser seized power amid the military's frustration over the war against RUF rebels, forming the National Provisional Ruling Council. The coup drove President Joseph Momoh into exile in Guinea and made Strasser the world's youngest head of state; the NPRC suspended the constitution, banned political parties, curbed the press and ruled by decree with unlimited powers of detention.

A constitutional review commission set up in October 1990 recommended ending one-party rule, and the APC parliament approved the new constitution effective 1 October 1991. It remains the basis of the current system of government, though Momoh's commitment to reform was widely doubted.

Fighters of the Revolutionary United Front led by former corporal Foday Sankoh crossed from Liberia on 23 March 1991, beginning eleven years of conflict fuelled by control of diamond-mining areas and marked by widespread atrocities against civilians. Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia reportedly helped form the RUF, which also aimed to strike at Nigerian-dominated peacekeepers based in Sierra Leone; about 50,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced into Guinea and Liberia.

The civil war of 1991 to 2002 resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of more than two million people, about a third of the population.

More than 60 senior officials were arrested after the alleged plot, including Vice-President Francis Minah. Minah was convicted and hanged in 1989, illustrating the violence underpinning APC rule.