Peace in Sierra Leone, a project under construction

‘The war is over, go and enjoy life,“ Sierra Leone’s former president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, declared at a January 2002 symbolic burning of weapons and ammunition to mark the end of the country’s civil war. As thick smoke from the weapons of war spiralled away at Lungi, in eastern Sierra Leone, he added: “The curfew is hereby lifted.” Thousands of jubilant Sierra Leoneans filled the streets to celebrate the formal interment of a decade-old war that had killed 150,000 people and wrecked most of the country’s social infrastructure.