Former Sierra Leone president Ahmad
Tejan Kabbah, widely credited as the man who returned the country to peace
after years of brutal civil war, died on Thursday.
He was aged 82.
“Former president Kabbah died at
his home around 15:50 GMT (3:50 pm) and the body has been transferred to the…
funeral home in Freetown,” said John Benjamin, a former chairman of Kabbah’s
Sierra Leone People’s Party.
Kabbah led Sierra Leone for two
five-year terms during and after its 11-year diamond-fuelled civil war, in
which thousands had their limbs hacked off and 120,000 people were killed.
He was praised for launching a
disarmament programme that led to the official end of the war in January 2002
with the help of a United Nations peacekeeping force and British military
trainers.
The cause of Kabbah’s death was not
immediately clear although he had been suffering high blood pressure and had
been ill for some time, local media reported, with friends and family making
several recent visits to his bedside. (PMNEWS)
No comments:
Post a Comment