Sierra Leone

Katrina Manson is an award-winning journalist who covered Africa for 12 years. She is US foreign policy and defence correspondent for the Financial Times, based in Washington DC, and is also writing a book about money, power and influence networks in Africa. Previously, she was the FT's East Africa correspondent, covering 13 territories including Somalia, and before that a Reuters correspondent in DR Congo, Tanzania, Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso.

James Knight has more than ten years' experience working on emerging market countries as a journalist, writer and consultant. He now works at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, having previously been a Senior Associate at a London-based communications agency, and freelanced for Reuters, ITV and The Sunday Times. He has lived across Africa, in Buenos Aires and Brussels, and draws on West Ham United FC and Afrobeat for inspiration.

This edition was updated by Sean Connolly. Sean first visited West Africa as a student in 2008, and since then has been returning to the continent regularly to research, teach English, or simply to soak up the ambiance in Africa's countless little-visited corners. When he's not discussing verb tenses, diplomatic recognition or the merits of camel meat, you may find him riding in the back of a grain truck, sampling questionable local delicacies or seeking out a country's funkiest records. Raised in Chicago, Sean has been poring over maps since before he could read them, and has updated or contributed to the Bradt guides to Somaliland, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Ghana, and Uruguay, and is the author of the first Bradt Guide to Senegal. He stays on the move whenever possible, though lately you'll most often find him in Berlin.