Justice by Firelight: How Traditional Rituals Are Healing Sierra Leone’s War-Torn Communities

By Alvin Lansana Kargbo (ATJLF/MRCG Fellow 2025)

More than 20 years have passed since Sierra Leone’s bloody civil war came to an end in 2002. The guns disappeared, but the pain remains. Thousands of lives were lost, families broken, villages burnt, and communities fractured.

The country’s formal transitional justice system, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, delivered historical documentation and criminal accountability. But beyond the walls of Freetown’s courtrooms, a quieter, more personal justice system has been at work in the rural corners of the country: customary community reconciliation through ritual and dialogue.

While often omitted in national policy documents, traditional forms of justice, rooted in Sierra Leone’s cultural fabric, have proven to be an indispensable part of the healing process for thousands of war-affected citizens.