NOTE: this is bad content The Second Sierra Leonean Civil War was a protracted, intense and deadly civil war that occurred between September 2031, and July of 2037. It was sparked in the months following the secession of the Republic of Kolenté, when an incident along the Kolenté-Sierra Leone border sparked an invasion of Kolenté.
Following the election of a new president in Sierra Leone in 2030, Abdul Ejatu of the Sierra Leone People’s Party, the Mende president began installing more anti-Temne policies in Sierra Leone. Despite many opinions going against the policies, they remained in place for an extended period of time. Repeated protests for reforms against these policies were shut down by force. A widely denounced incident in which Sierra Leonean forces gunned down a crowd of protesters served as the breaking point of the secession of the Republic of Kolenté from Sierra Leone. Border clashes between Kolenté forces and Sierra Leone’s forces began immediately after the secession of Kolenté, but most were short-lived and smaller. Sierra Leone demanded Kolenté be readmitted into Sierra Leone lest an invasion occur, but Kolenté refused. Artillery bombardments by Kolenté into Sierra Leone sparked an invasion of Kolenté by Sierra Leone on September 14, 2031. The invasion caught Kolenté forces by surprise, but after scrambling for a significant military force, they stopped the Sierra Leonean front at the Kolenté River at the Battle of Kobia. A massacre at Magbeni, Kolenté by Sierra Leonean forces on October 19 resulted in some countries joining Kolenté in the conflict.
A prolonged stalemate at what was named the Magbema Front (for the protracted and infamous Siege of Magbema) remained for 2 years, from December 2031 to February 2034 until it was broken by the partially-successful First Battle of Rokupr, in which Kolenté forces launched an attack at the Rokupr military base. The Kolenté attack was repelled after 2 days, but it mainly served as some sort of diversion as a larger attack occurred a month later in the March Offensive, when an army led by Kolenté General Easmon Kabia encircled Rokupr and captured it, gaining a significant advantage in the war, as a majority of the supplies for Sierra Leonean forces had came from that area. In addition, Guinea had been supplying Kolenté due to disapproval of Sierra Leone’s handling of the conflict. Guinean officials had been advocating for a peace process that included the reaccession of Kolentéan territory into Sierra Leone, and the revocation of anti-Temne policies, but Sierra Leone refused to agree to those terms. After Guinea refused to cease the supplying of Kolenté, Sierra Leone launched an offensive through Kolenté to invade them on March 28, 2034, launching the only major spillover of the civil war. However, at the Battle of Forécariah, aerial attacks by Guinean forces prompted the withdrawal of Sierra Leonean forces from Guinea.
The 2035 New Year's Offensive by Kolenté pushed Sierra Leone’s army back to the Sierra Leone-Kolenté border, prompting another stalemate. Repeated attempts by Sierra Leone at making a push into Kolenté were unsuccessful and had great amounts of casualties. After well over a year of minimal movement on the war front, and a total of 26 attempted offenses by Sierra Leone to break it, a coup d’etat committed by pro-Kolenté militants of the Movement for the Liberation of the Temne (or the MLT) replaced the Mende-oriented government in Sierra Leone with a more moderate one, and a peace process between Kolenté and Sierra Leone began. Although, nominally, Sierra Leone and Kolenté remained in a state of war, the leaders of Sierra Leone and Kolenté met at multiple conferences from late 2036 through mid-2037. Eventually, a peace deal was reached- all territory of Kolenté would be returned to Sierra Leone, in return for the full revocation of all policies perceived as anti-Temne. The peace deal came into effect on July 19, 2037, and the civil war ended.
The civil war had large numbers of countries supporting different sides. Few countries had completely supported Sierra Leone’s actions, although some supplied Sierra Leone with weaponry or moderate amounts of troops under the assumption that they’d end the anti-Temne policies. Nigeria and Niger, long-time allies, found themselves on opposing sides of the civil war, and made the decision to cease sending troops until the end of the war to avoid any direct conflict. The war received widespread attention for the human rights abuses committed by both sides, although mainly by Sierra Leone. 49 massacres were reported by Human Rights Watch in Kolenté. The United Nations helped in facilitating the peace deal that ended the war. The civil war had profound effects in the region- it marked the beginning of the protracted Kolenté conflict, which was born out of Temne separatists launching an insurgency in Sierra Leone to reestablish Kolenté. The Kolenté conflict would later merge with a conflict known as the Third African Great War, when the North African Pact would make a deal with Temne separatists that would allow them to gain independence if they worked with the N.A.P. against Ardhiziwa. During this conflict, Temne nationalist perpetrated an large-scale genocide against Mende peoples in Sierra Leone in an event known as the Sierra Leonean genocide- the genocide would also introduce a United Nations intervention in the war.
Background[]
The Temne people and Mende people of Sierra Leone collectively make up approximately 66.7% of the Sierra Leonean population. The Temne people were predominantly found in areas in and near the Northern Province of Sierra Leone, which would entirely be a part of Kolenté when it seceded. The Temne people were also partially found in some other West African countries such as Guinea and The Gambia, but a majority of them were located in Sierra Leone. In contrast, the Mende people were mostly found in the Southern and Eastern Provinces of Sierra Leone.
Both ethnic groups supported different political parties in Sierra Leone- Mende people mostly supported the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), while Temne people supported the All People’s Congress. The SLPP had been elected to positions of power in the period of time before the civil war.
In the 2030 Sierra Leonean general elections, the Sierra Leone People’s Party was brought to power again, following a 6-year period where they served as the opposition party. They also maintained a particularly strong majority in the Sierra Leonean Parliament, where they maintained a 78-seat majority out of the 146 seats in the Parliament. Newly-elected President Abdul Ejatu began the installation of multiple resolutions that were deemed by opposition leaders to be anti-Temne. Ejatu, who was a Mende supremacist, had started increasing taxes on certain Temne businesses, and the discrimination eventually escalated to Mende people being excluded from certain areas. This prompted widespread backlash and protests within Sierra Leone, but initially garnered little international attention or condemnation.
The Army of Temne Liberation, a protest-militia group formed in response to the anti-Temne policies, began staging protests against the policies put in place by Ejatu in large cities. In the Freetown massacres that occurred during December of 2031, a large protest against the policies eventually escalated to mild violence, which in turn prompted what was regarded as an excessive use of force against the protesters. At one point, a group of 25 riot police gunned down a parade against the policies due to alleged violence by the protesters.
The Freetown massacres brought international condemnation from human rights groups, and extremely widespread backlash against Ejatu by many Temne people. The incident was a direct catalyst to the secession of the Republic of Kolenté on January 19, 2031. The Northern Province and North West Province of Sierra Leone seceded to form Kolenté. Immediately, top-ranking Sierra Leonean officials called on the seceded territories to rejoin Sierra Leone, but they refused.
Although the secession itself brought about mixed views from the international community, it brought to light the anti-Temne policies instituted by Ejatu. Most foreign officials requested that Kolenté should rejoin Sierra Leone, but Ejatu should recall the anti-Temne policies. However, neither requests were met.
Outbreak[]
Intense artillery bombardments occurred throughout mid-September of 2034 along the Kolenté-SL border. Calls for peace had been largely ignored by Sierra Leone, who maintained their demand for Kolenté to cede all territory back to Sierra Leone. On September 14, 2031, a machine gun that had been secretly mounted on a Sierra Leone compound opened fire on a Kolenté military convoy, causing severe damage to it. Minutes later, the Sierra Leonean troops that had been located near there crossed the Kolenté-Sierra Leone border, launching the invasion of Kolenté.
The invasion came unannounced, and the Kolenté military compound at the Kolenté-Sierra Leone border was rapidly overrun, in an engagement that ended up with the death of 250 Kolentéans, compared to just 24 Sierra Leone troops. 1000 Kolentéan troops were captured following the engagement. In the first month of the war, Sierra Leone began the process of blocking off any routes to the sea, essentially completing a sea blockade of Kolenté. The Kolenté army rapidly prepared a force to combat the unprecedented invasion- at the Battle of Kobia on October 19 of 2031, the Sierra Leonean army was stopped in its tracks. They had attempted a siege of a warehouse in the area that was containing Kolentéan forces. However, the supposed threat of forces within the warehouse was actually a distraction, as a combined force of 1000 Kolentéan troops pushed against the besieging forces and ejected them from the town.
In Magbeni, Kolenté, a suicide bombing by a member of a local militia named the Temne Liberation Front killed a top Sierra Leonean general in the area. Sierra Leone instantly began searching for the planners of the operation, and ended up apprehending over 200 people in Magbeni (half the population of the village), and killing 75 of them. The massacre was widely denounced by both Kolentéans and Sierra Leoneans, and led to an increase of people joining the Kolentéan army. During the peace process in the late stages of the civil war, the commander of the massacre apologized for it, and asked to pay reparations to those who lost family.
First stalemate[]
After the battle at Kobia, the Sierra Leonean army stopped its advance along the Kolentéan shore, to begin strategizing as to avoid a potential repeat of the battle. During that time, Kolentéan forces had time to fortify the areas along the frontlines to prevent the Sierra Leoneans from moving out of them in significant numbers. However, Sierra Leone knew not of the fortifications until December of 2031, when the Battle of Magbema began.
Siege at Magbema[]
When Sierra Leone decided to push into Magbema, Kolenté, to continue the advancements along the Kolentéan coast, they were surprised to find well prepared fortifications in the town. The offensive was blocked off quickly and easily, with artillery fire suppressing the advancements into the town. However, instead of withdrawing, as the Kolentéans thought they would, they decided to settle in for a siege. The Sierra Leonean forces decided to focus on surrounding the front completely, and wearing down the Kolentéan forces with artillery strikes. Although the siege was expected to take, at most, about 2 months, it took a total of a year and a half for the situation in Magbema to change, making it one of the longest sieges in modern history.
Both sides focused on the siege, resulting in little to no changes in the frontlines during the siege. Sierra Leone focused on wearing down the defenses in Magbema, while Kolenté wanted to focus on opening up a channel to bring in further defenses to the town. A combined total of 5,000 forces participated in the siege. 700 soldiers were reported dead, along with 200 civilians killed in the crossfire. 8 offenses into the town by Sierra Leone were repelled by the fortified Kolentéans, while 4 attempts to open or widen a channel of defenses into the town were made unsuccessful by the Sierra Leoneans.
The siege of Magbema was broken at the First Battle of Rokupr, in February of 2034. Kolentéan forces attacked the town, breaking the stalemate of the war. Initially, they pushed out the minimal Sierra Leonean forces in the town, and began occupying part of it with some 200 forces, but their attack was, in turn, pushed back by a large force of 2000 soldiers from Sierra Leone, many coming from Magbema. With the Sierra Leonean forces in Magbema lessened significantly, Kolentéan forces rapidly reopened a channel to Magbema for the final time in the March Offensive. They brought in an offensive force to break apart the siege of Magbema, cementing Kolentéan control over the town. They then moved southwest to retake Rokupr in the Second Battle of Rokupr, and with most Sierra Leonean strongholds in Kolenté having been taken over, the first stalemate of the civil war ended.
Spillover into Guinea[]
Guinean officials had been advocating for a peaceful resolution to the conflict since the invasion of Kolenté in 2031. They had disagreed with Sierra Leone’s handling of the civil war, with the President of Guinea saying that Sierra Leone was “being nonsensical… with their refusal to revoke the blatantly anti-Temne policies, while at the same time demanding Kolenté return.” They had requested that both sides begin peaceful negotiations, suggesting that Kolenté cede its territory back to Sierra Leone in turn for the revocation of all anti-Temne people policies. However, Sierra Leone denied the requests for negotiations.
As a result, after the conclusion of the March Offensive by Kolenté, Guinea both recognized and began supplying Kolenté, as it had threatened to do if Sierra Leone didn’t consider the request for negotiations. After repeated demands by Sierra Leone to cease the supply efforts, on March 28, 2034, Sierra Leone pushed through Kolenté and crossed over into Guinea, launching the invasion of Guinea.

A destroyed building in Forécariah, following the Battle of Forécariah
Guinean troops had been stationed along the Guinea-Kolenté border in case Guinea decided to send troops to Kolenté, but even so, the speed of the Sierra Leonean forces prompted a retreat by Guinea. However, Guinean troops rapidly fortified themselves in Forécariah, and when Sierra Leone’s forces reached the sub-prefecture, Guinean forces in the area blocked the advances. At the Battle of Forécariah, a force of about 2000 Sierra Leoneans entered the town to establish a base to keep supplies at. However, Guinea had already set up defenses there, and they were able to encircle a majority of the Sierra Leonean forces entering Forécariah. In addition, Guinea attacked the troops in Forécariah with a portion of their air force, decimating the Sierra Leone offense. As a result, over 400 Sierra Leonean soldiers were captured, with 300 dying, in comparison with only 15 Guinean soldiers having been captured during the battle, and 40 Guineans dying.
The Battle of Forécariah brought about the first and only major defeat for Sierra Leone in Guinea, and prompted the withdrawal of Sierra Leone from Guinea.
Final stalemate[]
On January 1, 2035, a severe bombardment of Sierra Leonean positions along the Kolentéan coast began. Shortly after, over 10,000 troops rushed at the Sierra Leonean front, and began pushing them back to pre-war lines, in the 2035 New Year’s Offensive, the final successful one done by Kolenté. Attempts to stop the advance of troops were relatively futile, and soon enough, the Sierra Leoneans found themselves being rapidly pushed back towards pre-war lines. They began retreating as they began picking up more casualties.
The Kolentéans were slowed down due to destructive scorched earth operations done by the Sierra Leoneans, and the offensive came to an end when the Sierra Leoneans came back to the Sierra Leonean-Kolenté border on January 28, 2035.
From February 2, 2035 to May 19, 2036, the Sierra Leonean army attempted a total of 26 offenses into Kolenté in a series of futile attempts to reopen a front. A majority of the offenses failed to pierce further than about 5 miles into Kolentéan territory before fierce resistance forced them back to the border. Generally considered the most successful attempt was an offensive that lasted about 2 weeks, from December 2, 2035 to December 18, 2035. Sierra Leoneans managed to push up to the central Kolentéan coast before they were forced back to the Kolenté-Sierra Leone border by Kolentéan divisions attacking from the east. In total, the offenses brought 700 fatalities- about 200 from Kolenté, 400 from Sierra Leone, and the rest civilian casualties.
During this time, Guinea and Kolenté also engaged in talks on the future of Kolenté, and attempted to garner support for peace negotiations between Sierra Leone and Kolenté. However, Sierra Leone still refused, prompting a series of condemnations of Sierra Leone for their refusal to work to end the conflict.
Scorched Earth operations[]
The Kolentéans avoided the use of a supply line, simply living off the land that they moved over. This allowed them to move quick enough to do repetitive, quick attacks against the Sierra Leoneans. Aware of the Kolentéans strategy, the Sierra Leoneans began burning a majority of the resources they came across during their retreat, slowing down the Kolentéan offense enough for them to avoid further losses. The Sierra Leoneans destroyed farmhouses and stole large amounts of food from Kolenté, destroying hundreds of square miles of fertile land. They also killed over 2000 Kolentéans who resisted the scorched earth operations. The operations have been seen as one of the worst war crimes committed in the conflict, possibly causing over 15,000 deaths in total.
Coup d’etat[]
The Sierra Leone-based pro-Temne rebel group deemed the Movement for the Liberation of the Temne (or the MLT) had been largely active in Sierra Leone, organizing protests calling for the downfall of President Ejatu’s regime. Most protests had been suppressed with force, though, preventing their beliefs from being spread in significant amounts. Consequently, they began planning a coup to overthrow the government and replace it with a more moderate one, run by the de facto leader of the MLT, Joseph Kamara-Sesay (de facto because the MLT was a nominally decentralized group, without an official leader).
The MLT had about 600 armed militants throughout Sierra Leone and Kolenté. Their plan would have 70 militants attack and occupy the State House, where Ejatu was presumed to be, 50 militants occupy the House of Parliament, and 30 militants occupy the Supreme Court. They developed the plan on the presumption that there would be a significant number of Sierra Leonean mutineers, as there had been in Kolenté. However, there would be less than expected. The plan was to take place some time during July of 2036, whenever Ejatu was in the State House, and when there was a minimal amount of military presence around government buildings.
On July 19, 2036, Abdul Ejatu rode home from a meeting with military officials regarding intelligence gathering in Kolenté. Around 10:00 AM GMT, the MLT surrounded the State House and began attacking it, setting it ablaze briefly. Immediately, Sierra Leonean soldiers rushed from their posts around Freetown to the State House, and many of the MLT militants were overwhelmed. Kamara-Sesay called a further 50 militants to the State House to break the attack on the rebels. However, as he rode with a group of rebels to the State House, he was shot in the chest, and would later die of his injuries.
Now without a leader, the MLT’s initially coordinated rebellion against Ejatu essentially caused Freetown to descend into chaos. Although there were some mutineers from the Sierra Leonean Army that assisted the rebels, there were not as many as expected, and not enough to improve the situation of the rebels. Machine guns were mounted on pickup trucks to create improvised fighting vehicles. Cargo trucks were also used to transport rebels to different locations. However, by 2 PM GMT, the situation for the MLT began to improve. In the span of about an hour, both the House of Parliament and the Supreme Court building were taken over, with all occupants, ranging from representatives and judges to staff, being held hostage. This allowed many militants to redirect their forces towards the State House, which was still under siege by the MLT.
By 7 PM, it was reported that Abdul Ejatu had left the State House compound to an unknown location. Instantly, a manhunt for Ejatu began throughout Freetown, which was now mostly in the hands of the MLT, with the exception of the northern portions and many government buildings. Government forces still battled the rebels to retake control of the city, but little was done to stop the hunt for Ejatu. The next day, at around 7 AM, Ejatu was found with a group of armed soldiers in the basement of a shop near northern Freetown. He was shot near the heart and mortally wounded, although he maintained consciousness for an additional day before slipping into a brief coma and dying on July 20. Ibrahim Omara, a man who organized many large-scale protests in and around Sierra Leone that advocated for a peace process in Sierra Leone, was given the position of President the next day following a vote done by MLT members. The Sierra Leonean Parliament was temporarily suspended as government reforms went underway.
Many Kolentéans and Sierra Leoneans celebrated the coup with massive protests. While many countries, most prominently Guinea, opposed the violence that occurred in Freetown, they hoped that a peace process that would end the civil war would finally begin. Kolentéan President Peter Kabrima sent another request for a peace process in Sierra Leone, which President Omara agreed to. A ceasefire was agreed to and declared on July 29. Although it would not permanently end the fighting, as occasional cross-border raids continued, it ended the many Sierra Leonean offenses into Kolenté.
Peace process[]
Kolentéan officials retained their position that if Sierra Leone did not work to improve the quality of life of Temne people in Sierra Leone, they would remain a separate entity. Although the most discussed topic in the forums that both Kolentéans and Sierra Leoneans participated in were the policies initiated by Abdul Ejatu that discriminated against Temne people, topics that were also discussed were the potential federalization of Sierra Leone, among other topics.
The first summit began on September 29, 2036, in Cairo, Egypt. Kolentéan President Kabrima and Sierra Leonean President Omara discussed which legislation should be removed to begin negotiations. The two presidents and their advisors marked a total of 59 pieces of legislation that was said to discriminate against Temne people- the most prominent of which were taxes placed on Temne inhabited areas, certain prohibitions on the activities of Temne businesses, among other things. The second and final day of the Cairo summit, they discussed which pieces of legislation were to be withdrawn.
The second summit, now in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, began on December 1. Representatives of the two countries were sent to mark down which Sierra Leonean politicians could retain their political positions. The summit was brief, lasting a total of a day, and had a total of 79 Parliament members that they believed could return to their positions. They also considered outlawing the Sierra Leone People’s Party, but ended up deciding against that, in order to prevent any views that the new government of Sierra Leone was attempting to suppress opposition.
The third summit, in Tel Aviv, Israel, began on February 5, 2037, and lasted 2 days. The two Presidents began discussing the future of the Kolenté region. Kabrima suggested that Sierra Leone pursue a course of federalization, with the Northern and Southern portions of the country becoming entities with a certain degree of autonomy that still were a part of Sierra Leone. However, President Omara rejected the proposal, as he believed that it was too soon for Sierra Leone to pursue such a large course of action just after exiting a civil war. The two would agree that while it was too early for federalization, it was a course of action that could be pursued in the near future, once the country was repaired. They also chose Nigeria to be the country mediating country in the peace agreement that would be made
The final summit occurred in Lagos, Nigeria, and lasted a week, from June 4 to June 10. The presidents and their advisors, along with President Obi Abdullahi of Nigeria and his advisors, began drafting the final peace agreement to end the war. They eventually developed a treaty that had all territory in Kolenté be ceded back to Sierra Leone, the 59 pieces of discriminatory legislation initiated by the Ejatu government revoked, and fresh elections to take place in September of 2037, with all legal political parties participating. About 1 month later, in Abuja, Nigeria, on July 19, 2037, Sierra Leonean President Omara and Kolentéan President Kabrima signed the Abuja Accords, dissolving Kolenté, revoking the discriminatory policies, and ending the war.
Aftermath[]
The civil war and its aftermath led to one of the most catastrophic refugee crises in world history. 200,000 Temne peoples fled Sierra Leone to avoid violent massacres of Temne people in Kolenté, by the Sierra Leonean army. Scorched earth operations in Kolenté may have caused the starvation and deaths of thousands of people, and massacres of Temne people both in Kolenté and Sierra Leone killed many more. Temne refugee camps were created in southwestern Guinea and western Liberia.
Continued Kolenté conflict[]
While most former Kolentéan officials agreed to the terms of the Abuja Accords, some former Kolentéan politicians and a large portion of the population of former Kolenté wanted Kolenté to continue as a sovereign state. Insurgent activities in former Kolenté began immediately after the signing of the Abuja Accords, with a suicide bombing in Magbeni. The resultant Kolenté conflict continued for years, as a low-level insurgency continued, mainly in Magbeni. Occasional spillovers into Guinea occurred, but the conflict mainly existed as occasional armed attacks.
However, on July 19, 2040, 3 years after the Abuja Accords were signed, the Army for the Liberation of the Temne (ALT) launched a larger insurgency, based in Magbema. The ALT quickly gained control over the city, proclaiming the Democratic Republic of Kolenté, with Magbema as its capital. From there on, attempts by the ALT to actually obtain their claimed territory were usually rejected quickly.