A youth activist Girilla Koroma of 23A Patton Street in Freetown, is on the run according to the Sierra Leone Police.
Girilla Koroma is wanted by the Sierra Leone Police because he was a gang leader that led a demonstration on August 10 and 11 against the government for hardship and high cost of living and college fees that doubled. The 10 and 11 August protests was by young people. Girilla Koroma called people to join the protest saying it is their civic right to demonstrate against any government that violates their rights.
“We need price control and Maada Bio must go” were some of the wordings on placards and which was the main theme of the demonstration. Girilla walked up and down the street leading the demonstration around 10 am until 12:30 pm when they were dispersed with tear gas and gun shots.
Girilla went home around 1:00 pm and started receiving messages on social media groups including his college group sending images of dead people including police and civilian bodies. Also he heard the proclamation of the curfew by the Vice President Juldeh Jalloh and called it a state of emergency, immediately after that the internet was shut down nationwide. To our understanding that was when the Minister of Internal Affairs and some military personnel went to his house and were also taking people out of their homes and killing them in cold blood, most of those killed were men.
Girilla was captured and thrown into the police truck, hand-cuffed like a cows. After that, they were taking directly to the Male Correctional centre located at Pademba Road without even taking statement from him and the others.
Since that day he has been abused by men with masks on their faces and this was not happening to him alone. It was a normal routine to all of them in that particular prison where he was locked up.
They were reportedly 100 men in that particular cell. During that period no body was allowed to visit or see them. It was his first time to be in prison to go through such a terrible experience and trauma that will be with him forever.
That bondage continued till November 26 2023.
On November 26 midnight, around 2am Sierra Leone woke to the sound of gunfire and heavy artillery from a distance.

Within this period there was no more sleep and people were afraid for their lives. The gun sounds continued till 10 to 11am when they broke the prison. It was a military coup and they opened the prison and asked them to go home, hoping that the coup will succeed.
That was the beginning of a new life for Girilla. His aunt’s place was closer so he went there for immediate rescue. Around 4:30 to 5:00pm the same day they got the news that the coup had failed and started hearing rampant killings of the coup plotters and their relatives. That news scared him and he his prayed that God help him escape from this terrorist act.
Because there were two options running in his mind, either he successfully escapes or die in prison, his aunt’s place was like 3 kilometers from the prison.
Some of the neighbours’ houses were not raided because they were members of the ruling government and they are from the south east parts of the country.
After he knew that the coup had failed and they started arresting other prisoners and even killing some others, his aunt called her elder son Osman Conteh who was a commercial driver within Guinea and Sierra Leone to escape with him to Guinea, as check points were mounted heavily all over the country.
With the help of God and his cousin, he was able to make it to Guinea after a week of hiding.