Following a raid on a military weapons depot, the government of Sierra Leone, West Africa, imposed a nationwide curfew. There were exchanges of gunfire early in the morning at the weapons depot, located near the residence of President Julius Maada Bio, in the capital Freetown.
At the end of June, Bio was re-elected despite the serious economic crisis in the small coastal state with 8.8 million inhabitants. A month later, police arrested several senior officers on charges of planning a coup. From 1991 to 2002, Sierra Leone experienced one of the worst civil wars in Africa, with tens of thousands of deaths. In 2014, an Ebola outbreak plunged the country into another year-long crisis. The economy has not recovered since then. Many people, especially in rural areas, live in extreme poverty.
Bio, who governed for two months after a military coup in 1996 and helped lead the transition to the first free elections in decades, is considered by many to be the country’s “father of modern democracy.” His government, in power since 2018, introduced free education, promoted equality, science and the country’s infrastructure. At the same time, Bio is also criticized for his actions against opponents. More than 20 protesters and six police officers were killed in the violent repression of protests carried out by state security forces in August.