Sierra Leone

              Sierra Leone is a country bordered with Guinea, Liberia and the Atlantic Ocean. The Capital is Freetown with the official language being English. The 2013 estimate of population is 6,190,280 people. Education in Sierra Leone is legally required for all children to at least have six years of primary level school, and three years in junior secondary education, but since there has been a shortage of schools and teachers, it has been near impossible to implement those regulations. The Sierra Leone Civil War resulted in the destruction of 1,270 schools and left 67% of children out of school. Something I found interesting is the government has instituted free health care for pregnant and lactating women, plus children under the age of five. Seeing as the infant mortality rate is one of the highest in the world, the health care can help and save children from dying. During the Civil War, many soldiers took part in atrocities and many children were forced to fight. This left them traumatized, with an estimated 400,000 people (by 2009) being mentally ill. Thousands of former child soldiers have fallen into substance abuse as they try to blunt their memories. Mental health care is still not a service offered in the country five years after the Civil War ended in 2002. Mental healthcare in the country is almost non-existing; many sufferers try to cure themselves with the help of traditional healers, some of whose practices can be useful.

             The Sierra Leone Civil War that took place from 1991 to 2002 when the Revolutionary United Front intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government. Joseph Momoh was the president of Sierra Leone from 1985 to 1992, where he pretty much destroyed all of their economy. Sierra Leone got to the point where they could not afford to import gasoline or fuel, which resulted in the country looking electricity for months at a time. Momoh efforts did nothing for the country and he was overthrown in 1992. During the first year of the war, the Revolutionary United Front took control of large portions of territory in east and south Sierra Leone. There were various changes in the war, especially the South-Africa based private military company which was hired to in March 1995 to repeal the Revolutionary United Front. In March of 1996, Sierra Leone installed an elected civilian government and signed the Abidjan Peace Accord. There was so much danger going on in the country, over 50,000 people have been killed to date and over one million have been displaced. Each side has used a large number of children soldiers. As a possible, but fragile, peace deal had been agreed to in 1999, this made a bit of media attention. The UN-brokered peace deal however fell under much criticism. Human Rights Watch, for example condemned the UN on this peace deal because it would give amnesty to the rebels for their human rights abuses. Even Kofi Annan tried to clarify that while peace may have been agreed to, this does not give amnesty to anyone for human rights abuses. However, the Sierra Leone government has the "sovereign right" to do this, leaving the UN with a weak excuse to concede that it is not a perfect situation, but it is all that can be done to prevent the war from continuing.  At the beginning of July 2000, the United Nations Security Council decided to impose an 18 month ban on diamond imports from Sierra Leone, since diamonds have been fueling the conflict. I read that Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, yet it has the richest natural resources and minerals.