February 23, 2021
By: Sulaiman Stom Koroma
According to history “Sierra Leone was founded by the British in the 1780s as a haven for rescued and freed slaves; the area around Freetown was made a crown colony in 1808 and British rule gradually extended over the interior over the following decades.
France had also taken an interest in the West African coast, settling in the region of modern Senegal in the 17th century and later annexing the coast of what is now Guinea in the late 19th century as the Rivières du Sud colony. The area was renamed French Guinea 1893 and was later included within the French West Africa colony.
The 1880s saw intense competition between the European powers for territories in Africa, a process known as the Scramble for Africa. The process culminated in the Berlin Conference of 1884, in which the European nations concerned agreed upon their respective territorial claims and the rules of engagements going forward.
As a result, France and Britain signed a treaty on 28 June 1882 delimiting a boundary between Sierra Leone and Guinea, terminating inland at an undetermined point; another treaty of 10 August 1889 extended the boundary further to the east. This boundary was extended again by a treaty of 21 January 1895 down to the vicinity of Timbekundu, and was then demarcated on the ground from December 1895-May 1896; this demarcation was approved by an exchange of notes in June 1898.
Meanwhile, French Guinea–Liberia border was modified in September 1907-11, as was the Liberia–Sierra Leone border in January 1911, thereby extending the French Guinea-Sierra Leone boundary further south. Britain and France confirmed the new French-Guinea-Sierra Leone boundary line in June 1911 and signed a treaty to this effect on 4 September 1913.
French Guinea gained independence in 1958, followed by Sierra Leone in 1961, and the boundary then became one between two sovereign states”.
Let me pause the historic rendering and face the prevailing situation that has stirred claims and counter claims between Guinea and Sierra Leone over a piece of land.
Yenga is a small village in the Kissi Teng Chiefdom, Kailahun District. The village is at the International border between Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Yenga is located on a hill above the south side of the confluence of the Mafissia River and the Makona River (Moa River), where that river forms the border between the two countries. The area is inhabited by the Kissi people.
Before the late 1990s, Yenga used to be a small fishing village. During the war, the RUF rebels started mining diamonds in the Makona River. Soon fishing phased out and Mining and agriculture replaced it.
In 2001, the war has become difficult for Sierra Leone and its next option was to ask for support from some of the near-by counties and ECOWAS. With those appeals made, Guinea sent troops into Yenga to help our army repel the RUF rebels. After the rebels were driven out from the town, the Guinean soldiers remained in Yenga.
Since then, the Guineans have refused to leave the territory, nor have they allowed Sierra Leoneans to occupy the place. Since 1998 no school has functioned, nor has the villagers been allowed to make their farms. The sad thing is that the Guineans have since claimed that village.
They met deprived and poor people in the area, it was believed that during the process of taking over the town, many villagers were beaten and killed. It was explained that they even ventured into other villages, but those attempts were challenged because the chiefs stood up and drove them out of those villages. There were reported local resistance but regrettably, the Guineans held firm onto the Kissi village of Yenga.
Many efforts have been made to reclaim the village but to date, the issue remains an ‘egg slap’ on the face of Sierra Leone.
Michael Fayia Kallon who is an indigene of Kissy Teng once wrote an open letter to the Hon. Susan E. Rice – the United States Permanent Representative to The United Nation. He said that “The Guinean government from the 1950s to the early part of 1970s has killed nearly 10 Kissi fishermen on the Makona River; as the Guinean mistakenly took them to be coffee and cacao smugglers or Guinean farmers who surreptitiously crossed the Makona River at night to sell their products in Sierra Leone. There, they could gain greater profits, as the Guinean currency was devaluated. Also, Sekou Toure’s government was at loggerheads with the French government and with any country that encouraged the neo-colonialism that President Toure preached feverishly against in his regime”.
Apart from individual complaints, the government of Tejan Kabba at a conference in Dakar on September 7, 2004, Guinea agreed to return the disputed border village of Yenga to Sierra Leone, according to a joint communiqué signed by President Tejan Kabba of Sierra Leone and the late President Lansanah Conteh of Guinea.
John Bamba who was a press attache in former Presidents Koroma’s government quoted the former president of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists – Umaru Fofana in an article he wrote on Yenga, stated that President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was “presented with the best opportunity to have resolved the Yenga issue; not least because he is fluent in Susu, the ethnic group of the then Guinean president Lansana Conteh, that the two would have found it more fraternal.”
Former President Koroma campaigned on the basis that he will free Yenga; many attempts were made during his tenure but no success was recorded.
Now, the government of President Bio has also started the negotiation to free Yenga, recently. In a meeting with his other African colleagues, President Bio called for a Diplomatic way of peacefully resolving the Yenga issue.
Many Sierra Leoneans, especially those from Kissy Teng are furious that the government after government has not been able to free Yenga, they are now hopeless of having a town that was one a source of their livelihood now turned into a restricted area.
Border dispute in Africa is not a new phenomenon as there has been the Nadapal boundary dispute between Kenya and South Sudan, the dispute over Lake Malawi between Tanzania and Malawi, the dispute over the Mingino Islands between Kenya and Uganda, the Badme territory dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia; and border disputes between Sudan and South Sudan, land and maritime disputes between the Cameroon and Nigeria, territorial disputes on the Island of Mbanié between Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, the frontier dispute between Burkina Faso and Niger frontier dispute, the Benin–Niger frontier dispute and so many other.
While no serious signs are flagging for the reclaim of Yenga, Sierra Leoneans are still waiting for that ‘D-Day’ that ends the Guinean land occupation.
