Wellington: How community leaders led reconciliation efforts in post-war Sierra Leone.

By Mohamed Sinneh Kamara (ATJLF/MRCG Fellow 2025)

One major issue post-war Sierra Leone had to deal with was reconciling perpetrators of violence with members of the communities they lived in prior to the war.

Many former combatants couldn’t return home for fear of persecution for their role in meting violence on their own people. For some of these, it was their families, particularly their parents, who paid their price for their actions.

In Wellington in the eastern part of the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown, Chief Yagbome Posseh Bangura had a first had experience of this situation. First, she had the task of convincing her people to return to the community after the war.

“During the war, people fled in search of safety,” narrates the female traditional leader in an interview at her residence at 84 City Road, Wellington.