The Rise of Foday Sankoh and the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone

In March of 1991, the country of Sierra Leone was plunged into an 11 year civil war when fighters of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) launched a war from the east of the country near the border with Liberia to overthrow the government.

At the time, the RUF rebel group was under the leadership of Foday Sankoh who was the founder of this rebel group. During this period, Foday Sankoh had a close relationship with the Liberian warlord turned President, Charles Taylor. They had met in Libya at one of Moammar Gaddafi's training camps for fledgling revolutionary movements on the continent.

In fact, Taylor's troops accompanied the RUF rebels when they invaded Sierra Leone and Taylor assisted the RUF to transport weapons, ammunition, food and medical supplies among other things.

This Civil war in Sierra Leone resulted in the death of an estimated fifty thousand people and the displacement of over half a million people in a nation of just over four million people.
In this episode of African Biographics, we cover the grim story of Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front and their leader Foday Sankoh.


*********************************************************************************************

Sources:

Momodu, S. (2017, January 16). Foday Saybana Sankoh (1937–2003). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/glob....al-african-history/s

https://www.washingtonpost.com..../archive/local/2003/

https://www.britannica.com/pla....ce/Sierra-Leone/Civi

https://cco.ndu.edu/News/Artic....le/780201/chapter-8-

https://www.encyclopedia.com/p....olitics/legal-and-po

https://www.globalsecurity.org..../military/world/para

http://content.time.com/time/a....rts/article/0,8599,4

https://www.e-ir.info/2012/10/....25/the-causes-of-the


*******************************************************************************************

Music:

Desert City by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/r....oyalty-free/index.ht
Artist: http://incompetech.com/


John Stockton Slow Drag by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/uvp/
Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com/

Lamentation Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Emmit Fenn | Allégro


Feel free to reach out to us at africanbiographics@gmail.com

#SierraLeone #FodaySankoh