AlgeriaThe Bulom people were the first to settle in the region, followed by the Mende and the Temme in the 15th Century and the Fulani. In the middle of the 15th Century, Portuguese mariners began to sail up the broad mouth of the Sierra Leone River in search of fresh water. They named the mountainous peninsula, Serra Lyoa and traded in gold, ivory and slaves. During the last half of the 16th Century a Mende warrior people invaded the region and subjugated the local communities. Towards the end of the 18th Century liberated slaves from North America sponsored by private British patrons found a province in Sierra Leone. In 1808 Britain turned the capital, Freetown, into a naval base to enforce the abolition of slavery and in 1896 declared a protectorate over the interior to prevent it from falling into French hands. After the discovery of gold, diamonds, iron ore, bauxite and rutile, the colony experienced considerable economic growth. Since Dr. Milton Margai and his Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) led Sierra Leone to independence in 1961, the colony has experienced more than its fair share of coups and countercoups. On 25 May 1997, the democratically- elected government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was overthrown by a disgruntled coalition of personnel of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under the command of Major Johnny Paul Koroma. In 1998 Kabbah was reinstated by the Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). From January 1999, when renewed fighting broke out between the AFRC/RUF and ECOMOG troops, commerce has been at a standstill and hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes. In May 2002 sufficient stability enabled Sierra Leone to have its first free postwar presidential election. Tejan Kabbah won more than 70% of the popular vote, defeating four other candidates, including Johnny Koroma, and Pallo Bangura, the rebel-allied candidate who substituted for his jailed associate, Foday Sankoh.
The Bulom people were the first to settle in the region, followed by the Mende and the Temme in the 15th Century and the Fulani. In the middle of the 15th Century, Portuguese mariners began to sail up the broad mouth of the Sierra Leone River in search of fresh water. They named the mountainous peninsula, Serra Lyoa and traded in gold, ivory and slaves. During the last half of the 16th Century a Mende warrior people invaded the region and subjugated the local communities. Towards the end of the 18th Century liberated slaves from North America sponsored by private British patrons found a province in Sierra Leone. In 1808 Britain turned the capital, Freetown, into a naval base to enforce the abolition of slavery and in 1896 declared a protectorate over the interior to prevent it from falling into French hands. After the discovery of gold, diamonds, iron ore, bauxite and rutile, the colony experienced considerable economic growth. Since Dr. Milton Margai and his Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) led Sierra Leone to independence in 1961, the colony has experienced more than its fair share of coups and countercoups. On 25 May 1997, the democratically- elected government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was overthrown by a disgruntled coalition of personnel of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under the command of Major Johnny Paul Koroma. In 1998 Kabbah was reinstated by the Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). From January 1999, when renewed fighting broke out between the AFRC/RUF and ECOMOG troops, commerce has been at a standstill and hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes. In May 2002 sufficient stability enabled Sierra Leone to have its first free postwar presidential election. Tejan Kabbah won more than 70% of the popular vote, defeating four other candidates, including Johnny Koroma, and Pallo Bangura, the rebel-allied candidate who substituted for his jailed associate, Foday Sankoh.
The Bulom people were the first to settle in the region, followed by the Mende and the Temme in the 15th Century and the Fulani. In the middle of the 15th Century, Portuguese mariners began to sail up the broad mouth of the Sierra Leone River in search of fresh water. They named the mountainous peninsula, Serra Lyoa and traded in gold, ivory and slaves. During the last half of the 16th Century a Mende warrior people invaded the region and subjugated the local communities. Towards the end of the 18th Century liberated slaves from North America sponsored by private British patrons found a province in Sierra Leone. In 1808 Britain turned the capital, Freetown, into a naval base to enforce the abolition of slavery and in 1896 declared a protectorate over the interior to prevent it from falling into French hands. After the discovery of gold, diamonds, iron ore, bauxite and rutile, the colony experienced considerable economic growth. Since Dr. Milton Margai and his Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) led Sierra Leone to independence in 1961, the colony has experienced more than its fair share of coups and countercoups. On 25 May 1997, the democratically- elected government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was overthrown by a disgruntled coalition of personnel of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under the command of Major Johnny Paul Koroma. In 1998 Kabbah was reinstated by the Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). From January 1999, when renewed fighting broke out between the AFRC/RUF and ECOMOG troops, commerce has been at a standstill and hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes. In May 2002 sufficient stability enabled Sierra Leone to have its first free postwar presidential election. Tejan Kabbah won more than 70% of the popular vote, defeating four other candidates, including Johnny Koroma, and Pallo Bangura, the rebel-allied candidate who substituted for his jailed associate, Foday Sankoh. Somalia
While early civilizations were flourishing in the lower Nile Valley several thousand years ago, there was a migration southward into this region. Most of these early settlers were Cushites of caucasoid origin such as the Berbers and the ancient Egyptians and Nubians. About 1,500 years ago Negroid peoples arrived from the west and in the course of time extensive intermixing occurred. Arab and Persian merchant mariners founded the port of Mogadishu in the 10th Century and subsequently Merca, Brava, Kismayu, Lamu, Kilwa and other settlements further to the south. First the Hawiya Cushite clan near Mogadishu and in the ensuing years most others adopted the Muslim faith. In the 16th Century the area bordering the Gulf of Aden was part of the Turkish Ottoman empire. The Portuguese controlled the coastal centers in the south but were driven out early in the 18th Century by the Omani Arabs who gained control of the coast from Zanzibar and Mombasa to Mogadishu. Through all this activity the Somali peoples remained divided. At the height of the colonial era at turn of the 19th Century the Somalis were ruled by three European powers-France, Britain and Italy-and Ethiopia, in five separate regions. By mutual agreement, Italian and British Somaliland were united and given their independence as the united Republic of Somalia in 1960, while French Somaliland became the independent Republic of Djibouti in 1977. Somalis continue to live in Kenya's North-West Frontier province and in Ethiopia's Ogaden desert. After a brief period of democracy, the Republic of Somalia fell under the power of General Mohammed Siad Barre, who nationalized the economy as part of his economically disastrous policy of "scientific socialism."