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…
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…
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…
New Child-Friendly School at Risk from Teacher Walkout
GANTA–The first grade class at Ganta’s new child-friendly school recites multiplication tables as teacher’s assistant Mary Seway paces through the neat rows of tiny chairs and desks. At this school – the first of its kind in Liberia– children are the primary focus. Seway, a 45-year-old teaching veteran, said the approach allows more teacher-student interaction….