The enormous wealth of Sierra Leone’s mines has been more a burden than an opportunity for development.

A bloody war, fought with machetes often wielded by child soldiers, has caused at least 75,000 deaths (out of a total population of 4.5 million), deliberate mutilation of many more thousands of people, and forced migrations of two-thirds of the population to neighboring Guinea and Liberia.

The civil war completely destroyed the health care infrastructure: the infant mortality rate, which until 2005 was the highest in the world, is caused for the most part by malaria, diarrhea and common infections.

In 2001, EMERGENCY began a program for war victims in Goderich, on the outskirts of Freetown; later on, it began admitting also orthopedic patients and surgical emergencies.

In 2002, EMERGENCY built a Pediatric Outpatient Department next to the hospital, for the treatment of malaria, anemia and respiratory infections.

Since 2001 in Sierra Leone EMERGENCY has treated more than 198,000 people.