Siege of Freetown

Battle of Freetown
	Part of the Sierra Leone Civil War
	; Map of Sierra Leone
Date	25 May 1997 – 6 February 1998
Location	Sierra Leone, Freetown
Result	ECOMOG victory Koroma is deposed and Kabbah restored;
Belligerents
Sierra Leone AFRC; RUF;	Kabbah loyalists; Nigeria; (leading ECOMOG forces)
Commanders and leaders
Johnny Paul Koroma; Foday Sankoh	Ahmad Tejan Kabbah; Maxwell Khobe

The siege of Freetown was a battle during the Sierra Leone Civil War. It began when Johnny Paul Koroma took over the power from Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and began a dictatorship.^[1]^[2] In response, ECOMOG troops, led by Nigeria, helped the Sierra Leone Army to attack and remove Koroma from power and Kabbah was elected back in post. In revenge, Koroma's allies, the RUF, assaulted the city but were forced to retreat.^[3]

In fiction

The battle was portrayed in the film Blood Diamond (taking place in 1999, in spite of the RUF take over happening in 1997).

References

^ "Freetown under siege". The Independent. 12 February 1998. Retrieved 11 January 2026.
^ "Freetown under Nigerian siege - Sierra Leone | ReliefWeb". reliefweb.int. 1997-07-16. Retrieved 2024-01-19.
^ "Getting Away with Murder, Mutilation, Rape: New Testimony from Sierra Leone (Section I: Summary)". Human Rights Watch. July 1999. Retrieved 2024-01-19.

Bibliography

Mark Malan, 'Layered Response' To an African Conflict Or muddling through in Sierra Leone? [1]

[1] "Freetown under siege". The Independent. 12 February 1998. Retrieved 11 January 2026.

[2] "Freetown under Nigerian siege - Sierra Leone | ReliefWeb". reliefweb.int. 1997-07-16. Retrieved 2024-01-19.

[3] "Getting Away with Murder, Mutilation, Rape: New Testimony from Sierra Leone (Section I: Summary)". Human Rights Watch. July 1999. Retrieved 2024-01-19.

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