Sierra Leone: The West African nation welcoming the world

A new generation of Sierra Leoneans is eager to show visitors that the nation’s civil war is long gone and reintroduce one of Africa’s great destinations to the world.

Sitting in the shade of a palm tree on Tokeh Beach, one of Sierra Leone’s many postcard-worthy, white-sand waterfronts, Peter Momoh Bassie told me his story. “I am not ashamed to say I was part of the rebels because I was captured by force,” he said, looking out over the emerald-coloured water. “I never killed anyone,” he added.
Stories like Bassie’s abound in Sierra Leone, a small nation in West Africa with more than 300km of coastline sandwiched between Guinea and Liberia. The country’s 11-year civil war that ended in 2002 killed more than 50,000 people and displaced 2.6 million more. The rebels captured Bassie when he was just 11 years old. He was held captive for six years, managing to escape – and get caught again – three times.
Today, Bassie works as a tour guide for Tourism Is Life, one of many Sierra Leonean travel companies eager to show the world that the nation is now safe and introduce visitors to its many rainforests, beaches and rich cultural experiences.
Though the war ended more than two decades ago, its legacy – compounded by a 2014 Ebola virus outbreak – has meant that Sierra Leone remains something of an off-the-beaten-path destination, attracting only a small fraction of the visitors who venture to nearby Ghana or Senegal, for example.