In December 2019, conflict broke out between an iron ore miner, Solway Mining Company and Gbazor villages when the company entered the Blei Forest after acquiring a mining licence from the Liberian government. The conflict was caused by a disagreement between government that badly needs revenue from the mining company and the Gbazor community who…
Sierra Leone
Destitute Diamond Diggers: Artisanal Miners in Sierra Leone Struggle for Survival
After five years of apprenticeship under his father and 12-years working dry riverbeds as an artisanal miner, Alieu Musa knows a thing or two about digging, swishing gravel and finding diamonds. His roughened hands parade his 37-years as they grip the handlebars of the small “okada” (a local motorbike) as he wheels over the pitted…
Now Breadwinners, Ex-Rebels in Liberia and Sierra Leone Work in Mines They Ran
SAND BEACH, River Cess – As a commander of the Small Boy Unit —a brigade of child-soldiers of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia — Emmanuel Gaye guarded civilians his adult commanders captured on a goldmine in River Cess. He monitored their movement and activities. Nearly 18 years after the war, the 36-year-old has returned…
Ex-combatants Fight a Different War on Small Scale Mine Sites in Liberia and Sierra Leone
Poor economies of Liberia and Sierra Leonean since the end of civil wars have made it almost impossible for hundreds of thousands of ex-combatants to make a living, despite the large rehabilitation and reintegration programs run by the UN at the end of the conflicts. Many, whose fighting days left them ostracized from communities, and…
Illegal Sierra Leonean Miners Dying in Liberia
HENRY TOWN, Liberia and KENEMA, Sierra Leone – Ibrahim Sesay, a Sierra Leonean miner, never signed up to die when he crossed into Liberia in 2008 in search of greener pasture on mines in Korninga Chiefdom of Gbarpolu’s Bopolu District. A New Narratives cross-border investigation by Mae Azango and Emma Black in Sierra Leone and…
Mining Companies Battle COVID-19 After The Ebola Crisis
Between 2014 and 2017, Sierra Leone was hit by the Ebola virus along with Guinea and Liberia. The disease killed almost 4,000 people in Sierra Leone but perhaps the worst of the crisis was the brutalization of the economy, especially in the extractive sector. In March 2020, Sierra Leone recorded its first confirmed case of…
How Covid 19 Protections are Impacting Mining in Sierra Leone
On 31 March 2020, when Sierra Leone recorded its first case of COVID-19, the Government instituted measures to prevent the transmission of the virus. Many of these preventative measures are based on the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommendations. These measures have greatly impacted the lives of every…
Aftermath of London Mining operation in Lunsar… Cemetery Turned Dumpsite
The operations of the defunct London Mining PLC in Lunsar have left residents of Chindatta Village with bad feelings with regards the bulldozing of their ancestral graveyard without due process and without any regard for the dead. Chindatta village happened to be one of the communities affected by the operations of the company, and residents…
Call for Journalists to Report on Justice Issues in Sierra Leone
West Africa Justice Reporting Project – Seeking Justice The Media and Information Bureau (MIB) in Sierra Leone is starting a new project with New Narratives, a non-governmental organisation that has been driving improvements in West African media for 9 years. The project supports journalists to cover justice issues. The project in Sierra Leone is part…