Sierra Leone iron ore crisis creates debt-racked ghost town
LUNSAR, Sierra Leone (Reuters) - In the months since Sierra Leone’s largest iron ore mine laid off almost all its workers due to a legal dispute with the government, the once bustling town of Lunsar has become a shadow of its former self. In the central market of Lunsar, whose name means “Land of Stones” in the local language, only a few stalls remain open. Taxi drivers and traders say business has ground to a halt. Hundreds, if not thousands, of residents have left altogether. “I can’t just wait for the mine to restart, because I have five families [to support], my mother and father, brothers, cousins,” said 35-year-old Abdulai Bangura, who like his father had spent much of his adult life working at the Marampa mine. Since the closure, Bangura has been forced to scrape a living growing corn, cassava, peanuts and potatoes on a plot whose soil shimmers from the still abundant iron ore in the ground. In all, 1,700 workers at Marampa were dismissed, nearly 5% of the t...