Introduction to Sierra Leone and its poverty situation Sierra Leone, a country located in West Africa, has long struggled with high levels of poverty and economic challenges. Despite its rich natural resources, including diamonds, gold, and iron ore, the majority of the population in Sierra Leone continues to live in poverty. Factors such as a history of colonial exploitation, political instability, and the devastating impact of a civil war have contributed to the current state of poverty in the
The world deals with the good and evil; for example, war has these two opposing sides, but is there really a good side and an evil side when they are fighting and killing each other. In 1991, the country located in Africa, called Sierra Leone was undergoing a civil war (until
From the years 1991-2002, the country of Sierra Leone went through a brutal civil war leading to the deaths of an estimated 50,000 people. Atrocities of the war were large and severely impacted not only combatants, but non-combatant civilians as well. The leading cause and funding for this war came from Sierra Leone’s biggest income, diamonds. These diamonds have since been called “Blood Diamonds” or “Conflict Diamonds”. The after effects of this civil war have been massively devastating, especially
Anup Shah writes about the civil war in Sierra Leone with the government on one side and the rebels (the RUF) on the other. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) was once a respectable organization but soon turned corrupt and called many governments corrupt and incapable of managing diamond resources. The same war Sierra Leone had fought against the RUF had happened in Kosovo before. But, this one had 25 more times the amount of death with worse cruelties and less media coverage. The governments and
Sid Pennington 10/27/2014 MGT 210 Blood Diamond The 2006 film, Blood Diamond, is set in Sierra Leone in 1999 during the civil war and tells the story of an ex-mercenary and a fisherman on the search of a rare and big diamond found while being enslaved by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels. The land of Sierra Leone has great value to many different groups of people and organizations as the natural resources of the area hold great wealth within them. With great wealth comes great power and
The 11 year civil war period in Sierra Leone is known for its brutality and the strength shown in its youth. Corrupted by greed, corruption and a bad judiciary system(), Sierra Leone was stripped of prosperity with an increased uneducated youth and unemployment rate leaving most of its people in poverty (3). Charles Taylor the leader of neighbouring country Liberia, controlled numerous criminal networks though out western Africa. Liberia had just previously experienced its own civil unrest to gain
The Sierra Leone civil war occurred in two phases, between 1991-1996 and 1997-2001, with a large scale wanton of violence. Based on media reports, Mitton (2016) highlights the description of Sierra Leone as a ‘war torn’ country. Due to the cruelty of violence highlighted during the civil war – involvement of children in atrocities and infliction of amputations upon citizen – intensified the systematic complexity (routine) of the civil war. The Sierra Leone civil war has been described in different
Aspects of New York and Sierra Leone Discussed in A Long Way gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier Ishmael Beah presents a sharp comparison between the life in New York and Sierra Leone in his book A Long Way gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. These differences are based on his own personal experiences as a native of Sierra Leone and a resident in New York. Beah was a teenage soldier in his native town during the civil war that his country faced during the 1990’s. He participated in that war as a teenage soldier
Long Way Gone A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah, an author from Sierra Leone. The book is a firsthand account of Beah's time as a child soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone . Beah ran away from his village at the age of 12 after it was attacked by rebels, and he became forever separated from his immediate family. He wandered the war-filled country and was forced to join an army unit who brainwashed him into using guns and drugs. By thirteen,
Sierra Leone is a petite country located on the west coast of Africa. Sierra Leone is bordered by Guinea, Liberia, and the Atlantic Ocean. The most common language here is Kiro; it is a mix of English and a variety of African languages. Sierra Leone has multiple large resources like diamonds, chromite, and rutile. Also Sierra Leone was home to a bloody and costly civil war. The civil war in Sierra Leone began on March 23, 1991 and lasted until January 18, 2002. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
The cause of the Sierra Leone war was diamonds. Not even the civilians knew the complete story. The Blood Diamond Documentary informs people about the Sierra Leone war and it’s bloodshed, but just watching it doesn’t give you the whole truth. Child soldiers did many things wrong, but they are also victims of the war. A Long Way Gone allows people to become personally attached to the main character, Ishmael Beah, who
A Long Way Gone. This heartbreaking true story of young Ishmael Beah’s life during the Sierra Leone civil war. When he was twelve years old, Beah's village is attacked while he is away performing in a rap group with friends. Among the confusion, violence, and uncertainty of the war, Ishmael, his brother, and four friends rush from village to village in search of food and shelter, trying their hardest to avoid the rebel soldiers. Their day-to-day life is fall of struggle and grief, wondering if
the tragic experiences Ishmael Beah had to endure during the Sierra Leone Civil War. Ishmeals reframed these events through courage, faith, and belief. A Long Way Gone the story shows that hope is an integral component of survival which is portrayed by Ishmael successfully escaping and enduring the horrific war. A Long Way Gone is Ishmael Beah’s memoir. It retracts all of the tragic events Ishmeal endured while the Sierra Leone civil war occurred. Ishmael was a child who lived an ordinary life until
The civil war in Sierra Leone has taken its toll in the 1990s. The aftermath of the destruction due to the rebels were equivalent to the actual war. Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and Mariatu Kamara, author of The Bite of the Mango, both share their personal stories of their memories in Sierra Leone. Both at just the age of 12 their lives were war filled and were forever changed. By age thirteen he was a child soldier for the Sierra Leone Armed Forces and she was
A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a boy soldier is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah. This novel is about Ishmael's first hand experience of the Civil war in sierra leone between Mar 23, 1991 to Jan 18, 2002 .I feel the book gave a genuine glimpse of war and how Ishmael stayed alive as a refugee and showed what he had to do in order to survive in this war. The memoir also showed the corruption of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) who with the support of the Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of
soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone. His writings show how he went from a regular child living day to day to a violent, bloodthirsty soldier trying to survive. I enjoyed this book because Beah’s writing is honest and blunt, and he’s not afraid to describe the horrible violence and trauma he and his comrades endured as young soldiers. Despite the harsh reality of the book, Beah writes with faith and courage. A Long Way Gone is a true story about the civil war in Sierra Leone that lasted from
autobiographical novel that informs people about the civil war in Sierra Leone. This war caused massive destruction to the country physically and mentally. The citizens of Sierra Leone were forced to kill, starve, die, and leave their country for peace somewhere else. This novel describes the horrifying experiences a young boy, Ishmael Beah, had been through during the Sierra Leone civil war. The author used great motifs to describe the importance of war and familial love in the novel. Ishmael’s life
Beah, the book details his childhood throughout the Sierra Leon civil war. The book shows how you can turn an innocent child into a killing machine. We see both sides of the warring party do this with them drugging the children, turning them against the enemy with propaganda and threatening them with death. These are the factors that made a quarter of all the soldiers within this war under the age of eighteen. Both the RUF and the Sierra Leone Army threatened anyone who did comply with death. The
caused in west Africa; a civil war broke out in Sierra Leone between the government and a group of rebels, known as the RUF (Revolutionary United Front), which resulted in the burning of villages, and in the deaths of many men, women, and children. Just as Chinua Achebe argues that Heart of Darkness is a racist representation of Africans in “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness,’” I argue that Blood Diamond offers a racist representation of Sierra Leone and Africans as well; although
Ishmael Beah, recalls his time as an orphaned child soldier, in Sierra leone, in his memoir A long way gone. Amongst those who were moved by the memorable piece of literature, there are those who quarrel with the idea that it is a completely factual account of the events that took place in Sierra Leone and the details regarding the physical wounds he obtained. While some of the claims made against its accuracy made are valid, It does not diminish the merit of the memoir. Beah’s escapade as a child