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Former Sierra Leone President Kabbah Dies


Sierra Leone's former president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who is widely credited with ending an 11-year civil war, has died after a long illness. He was 82.

Mr. Kabbah, who became president in 1996, was briefly ousted by a military coup before returning to power. He stepped down in 2007 after serving two terms in office.

During his time in office, he coaxed Sierra Leone through a peace process that ended the brutal civil war in 2002, with the help of U.N. peacekeepers and a military intervention by former colonial power Britain.

Tens of thousands of people were killed and many more were maimed in the bloody conflict.

At the end of his second term in 2007, Mr. Kabbah won praise for peacefully handing power to the opposition when his party lost the elections.
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