Liberia

From 1989 to 1996 Liberia was torn by one of Africa’s bloodiest civil wars, which claimed the lives of more than 270,000 people and displaced over a million to refugee camps in neighbouring countries. After several peace accords and declining military power, the rebel leader Charles Taylor finally agreed to the formation of a transitional government, and his National Patriotic Party won the 1997 special elections, amidst widespread fear of the return of the violence had Taylor failed to obtain victory.

Taylor’s support to the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone during the next six years eventually led to the resumption of armed rebellion against his government. Fighting reached Monrovia in July 2003, creating a massive humanitarian disaster. Liberia’s violent history ended with Charles Taylor’s resignation and departure into exile in Nigeria in August 2003.

The 2005 presidential and legislative elections saw Ellen Johnson Sirleaf become Africa’s first democratically elected woman president and heralded a dramatic turnaround in Liberia’s political, security and developmental prospects. The new government quickly won substantial donor support for its policies on national reconciliation, investigation and prosecution of human rights abuses and its poverty reduction strategies.

Humanitarian aid to Liberia has steadily declined as donors shift their funding towards reconstruction and development. In 2011, however, Liberia hosted a sudden influx of refugees from the political and security crisis in neighbouring Côte d‘Ivoire following the disputed 2010 elections.