Liberia Follow

As the relentless spread of Ebola continues in west Africa it is clear that the response of the West is counterproductive. 

The Ebola outbreak in west Africa has cost thousands of lives. Ken Olende looks at how inequality and the legacy of colonialism lie behind the crisis. Marcia, an aid worker in Sierra Leone, writes exclusively from the front line

Nurses at the JFK hospital in Liberia’s capital Monrovia have gone on strike demanding better protection against Ebola.

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor has been convicted of aiding and abetting war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The British media have reported the hearings into the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor as a soap opera starring such celebrities as Naomi Campbell and Mia Farrow.

1821 US Colonisation Society buys part of Sierra Leone in West Africa and US provides firepower to set up a colony—Liberia. It resettled around 20,000 US slaves who had won their freedom.

Leo Zeilig traces the history of the crisis gripping Liberia.

NO SANE person could be unmoved by the terrible suffering of people in the West African state of Liberia. Fourteen years of brutal civil war has seen at least 200,000 people killed out of a population of three million. Many others have been injured or lost their homes.

LIBERIA IS a typical colonial country. A few tens of thousands of the population are "Americo-Liberians", Negroes whose ancestors were once slaves in America but returned and settled in the country during the early days of its colonisation. After the First World War America found herself confronted with the necessity of competing against the British rubber monopoly.