Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Sierra Leone followed a similar path from British dependency to republic to one-party state and military dictatorship. In the 1990s, a rebel movement, financed by diamond sales, inflicted dreadful punishment on the local population, but a remarkable turnaround resulted from British intervention during the late 2000s. Diamonds are still the leading export, and now-stabilized Sierra Leone (population: 6.6 million) ranked among Africa’s fastest growing economies until Ebola struck in 2014." [Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 17th Edition, p. 307]