CONGO TOWN, Monrovia, Liberia – A woman who alleges she was abducted from outside her compound by unknown men, drugged, raped and dumped on the Robertsfield Highway, has accused the police of failing to launch an investigation into her ordeal. She claims the police are intimidating her and her visitors as she undergoes treatment in hospital. …
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…
William Harmon Alum
William Q. Harmon is a political and environmental reporter at the Daily Observer newspaper. He has been a practicing journalist for over a decade having joined the Observer in 2011. William started as a roving reporter before settling into his preferred beats—political and environmental reporting. William provided coverage for the Executive Mansion for five years…
New Narratives launches Excellence in Extractives Reporting Project in Liberia and Sierra Leone
New Narratives kicked off an 18-month project this month reporting on the extractives sectors in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The project, supported by German Development Cooperation, will allow ten of the top journalists in each country to learn about and report on developments in these sectors which are crucial to the economies of both countries….
Crisis Roils the Catholic Church as NN Investigation Reveals Bishops’ Abuse of Power; Vatican Stays Silent
MONROVIA, Liberia – A leading priest of the Roman Catholic Church in Liberia has made explosive allegations against Arch Bishop Lewis Zeigler and Bishop Andrew Karnley roiling Catholic congregations in the country. In his testimony, sent to Pope Francis’s email address and by registered mail to the Vatican and to Reverend Monsignor Dagoberto Campos Salas, the…
The April Hoodoo Still Haunting Liberians
MONROVIA, Liberia – As Liberians cross off the final days of April, many still fear the April hoodoo or “misfortunes” could soon return. With recent demonstrations over economic inequality and former warlords causing chaos earlier this month, some fear the hoodoo could be working its juju. Liberia’s recent history has been marked by deadly events that…
Liberia: No Decoration for Forgotten ‘Death Hole’ Victims
DEATH HOLE, Monrovia, Liberia – Loud weeping and low meditations, wreaths on sparkling graves, radiant tombstones with prayers that the inhabitants “Rest in Peace”, quarrels over vaults and vandalism, too. These are some of the highlights of Decoration Day, observed this year on March 13. But the graveyard at the end of the runway of the…
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…
Mae Azango Senior Reporter/Program Manager
Mae Azango is one of the best known reporters in Liberia. Her consistent dedication to telling the stories of ordinary Liberians in FrontPage Africa newspaper has won her acclaim in Liberia and around the world. In March 2012 Mae was forced to go into hiding after her report on the practice of female genital cutting by Liberia’s traditional societies brought…
The Story of a Liberian War Crimes Campaigner – Adama Dempster
MONROVIA, Liberia – Adama Dempster still graphically recollects his first encounters with war. He was in 5th grade at a public school in Yekepa in Nimba County, when rebels with the National Patriotic Front of Liberia began recruiting school boys as child soldiers. The NPFL recruitment of child soldiers was done discreetly, so some of Dempster’s…
War is Over, But for Rape Victims, Suffering Goes On
KPEWUDU TOWN, River Cess – The last 27 years have not been kind to Mechen Barchue. The single mother with two children to support lives in a thatched hut she constructed herself and sells charcoal to make ends meet. This story first appeared on The Bush Chicken as part of a collaboration for the West Africa Justice Reporting…
War Victims and Perpetrators Living Together in Fear and Anger
BLAY TOWN, River Cess – The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report recorded 30 massacres in River Cess, making it the county with the second highest number of mass killings during the wars. Only Lofa saw more. But people here in River Cess say there were many more massacres that the TRC did not cover….
Liberia: War Survivors Angry Boley Not Jailed in America
Sasstown District, Grand Kru County – Vincent Toe, 41, was only a lad when he witnessed rebels with the Liberia Peace Council (LPC) kill his aunty and eight other people in a town called Behtu. The rebels accused them of practicing witchcraft. “They cut off her head in front of me,” Toe says of his aunt…
More Rapes Being Reported but Courts Fail to Keep Up
Monrovia – A frail girl sits quietly on a wooden bench. A silky dress is pulled over her knees. Her face is a vision of fear. Tracy, not her real name, is only ten, but she has already suffered the trauma of rape. This story first appeared on FrontPageAfricaOnline as part of a collaboration for the West Africa Justice…
Justice Seen as Solution for Post-War Land Conflict in Nimba
GANTA, Nimba County – Conflicts over land have long plagued Nimba County but the 14-year-civil war made the problem much worse. Now, 15 years from the end of the war, conflict over land is threatening to spill into violence once again. This story first appeared on The Daily Observer as part of a collaboration for the West Africa…
Liberia: ‘No War Crimes Court’, Say Some Victims
Monrovia – Fabine Kwiah was only a child when she and her two elder brothers Paul and Josephus Kwiah fled Fendell to Clara Town amid fierce fighting between soldiers of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) and rebels of the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL). It was 1990 and the AFL soldiers—loyal to then…
Liberia: “Archibald Bernard has hijacked our Property” – Claims family of Samuel K. Doe
MONROVIA – The complex web of land rights issue catches everyone in Liberia with its tendrils reaching rich and poor alike. One family that claims it is a victim is that of the slain president, Samuel K. Doe. Former first Lady NanceB. Doe, accuses Cllr. Archibald F. Bernard, legal advisor to President George Weah, of using political power to…