Sierra Leone, 1998 — foreign-backed coup
Event Summary
In February 1998 the Nigerian led ECOMOG force of ECOWAS drove the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council junta of Major Johnny Paul Koroma out of Freetown, reversing the May 1997 coup that had ousted elected President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. The AFRC, allied with the Revolutionary United Front, had signed the Conakry agreement in October 1997 promising to return power to Kabbah by 22 April 1998, but implementation collapsed and fighting intensified. Following attacks on its bases outside Freetown, ECOMOG launched an offensive on the capital in early February 1998, supported by Nigerian air and naval power.
By mid-February virtually all of Freetown was under ECOMOG control and the junta leadership had fled the country. The deposed party in this record is therefore the Koroma junta, not Kabbah, who was the restored civilian leader and returned to Freetown on 10 March 1998 to resume the presidency. The intervention was accompanied by heavy urban fighting and civilian casualties, and AFRC and RUF forces regrouped in the provinces and continued the war, including the January 1999 assault on Freetown.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
45102121998
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: The AFRC junta of Major Johnny Paul Koroma, driven from power; junta leaders fled the country and President Kabbah was restored.
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →