TODAY IN HISTORY: THE FINISH OF SIERRA LEONE CIVIL WAR (1991–2002).

Sierra Leone Civil War .

It was friday , January 18^th 2002 when the SIERRA LEONE ARMY finally defeated the  Revolutionary United Front (RUF) With help from United Nations forces , British troops, and Guinean air support,they took the control of free town and finally installed the new president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and declared the final end of the war.

Sierra Leone’s Civil War lasted from 1991 to 2002. The war began on March 23, 1991, when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF),  led by Foday Sankoh attempted to overthrow Sierra Leonean President Joseph Momah's administration with the backing of Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor and his group, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia. The Sierra Leone Civil War was one of the bloodiest in Africa with over 50,000 people killed and half a million displaced in a country of four million people. The battle was especially vicious and prolonged because both the RUF and the Sierra Leone government were frequently sponsored by “blood diamonds” dug using slave labour.

In March 1993, The Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) sent mostly Nigerian troops to Freetown, the capital, to help the Sierra Leone Army retake the diamond districts and push the RUF to the Sierra Leone-Liberia border. Many observers believed the battle was over by the end of 1993, when the RUF discontinued the majority of its military actions. However, what had began as a civil conflict had international consequences, as the Sierra Leone government was supported by ECOMOG, Great Britain, Guinea, and the United States, while the RUF was supported by Liberia (now under Charles Taylor’s leadership), Libya, and Burkina Faso.

In January 1999, world leaders intervened to encourage discussions between the RUF and the government. July 7, 1999, marked the signing of the Lome Peace Accord. That agreement handed Foday Sankoh, the RUF commander, the vice presidency and control of Sierra Leone’s diamond mines in exchange for a cease-fire and the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force to monitor the disarmament process.