By Sheriff Mahmud Ismail
At the edge of Sierra Leone’s northern frontier, where the boundary with Guinea exists more in memory than in markers, a nation’s pride was forced into the dust.The Government of Sierra Leone through its Ministry of Information and Civic Education has, in it’s 24th February, 2026 press statement, confirmed that Sierra Leonean troops were apprehended by the Guinean army and transported across the border where they were disarmed and detained. The statement went further to assure the public that the relevant regional and continental authorities have been intimated. While the government’s tone is measured and should, the footages circulating on social media are not.
The videos are jarring. Sierra Leonean soldiers – a Second Lieutenant, other ranks of the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces, and an armed officer of the Operational Support Division of the Sierra Leone Police — young men in fatigues bearing the weight of flag and oath — appear subdued, helpless, disheveled and humiliated. In shaken voices, they recount how truckloads of Guinean forces overwhelmed a border post in Falaba District, leaving injuries, confusion and a silence heavier than gunfire.
Their colleagues captured alive were displayed in even more demeaning ways – pressed to the ground, encircled by foreign troops while civilians look on. To see uniformed men — deployed to defend their communities and protect the territorial integrity of the state — berated, overpowered and displayed before civilians is pitiable, painful and profoundly demoralising. It is embarrassing not because our soldiers lacked courage, but because they were placed in a theatre of humiliation. A soldier’s uniform is not just cloth; it is a flag stitched into a nation’s fabric. When it is dragged through the dust before villagers, the entire nation feels or should feel the abrasion.
In geopolitics, humiliation is rarely accidental. It is staged, witnessed and amplified. And when a country’s uniformed defenders are made to kneel before their own people, the injury is not only tactical — it is psychological, national, and enduring.
The optics are as depressing as they are unbearable. This was therefore, clearly more than a tactical encounter at a remote border post. It was a spectacle, a deliberate one at that.
A Pattern, Not an Accident
The confrontation in Falaba must be understood within the longer arc of the Yenga dispute. Guinea first occupied Yenga during Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war, ostensibly to prevent the spillover of conflict raging across Sierra Leone and Liberia. The understanding, according to successive diplomatic accounts, was that the presence would be temporary. Peace came. Democratic elections were held. The armed forces were retrained and reformed. Yet the withdrawal did not fully materialise.
Under President Ernest Bai Koroma and President Alpha Condé, painstaking diplomacy secured a withdrawal. The matter, though sensitive, was handled through statecraft rather than spectacle. But following the military coup in Conakry, the tone shifted. Agreements were negated, deployments hardened and tensions revived. Since the coup, Guinea’s posture on Yenga has stiffened, and now, troublingly, its military footprint appears to be expanding beyond the historic flashpoint.
The Theatre of Humiliation
What occurred in Falaba goes beyond cartography. Borders are lines on maps; sovereignty is a line in the soul. For civilians in those communities, to watch their defenders forced prone under foreign guard is to feel suddenly unprotected. For the soldiers themselves, to endure public subjugation is to carry an invisible scar long after bruises fade. Morale in any army is not built solely on weapons; it is built on dignity.
Guinea’s actions constitute more than an incursion. They amount to bullying. The demeaning treatment of Sierra Leonean soldiers reads as deliberate provocation, a calculated demonstration of superiority designed to send a message far beyond the bush paths of Falaba. It should anger every Sierra Leonean. Not an anger that spills recklessly into xenophobia or mob sentiment. But a disciplined, national anger — the kind that steels resolve rather than scatters it.
The Danger of Division
External pressure has a way of exposing internal fractures. That must not happen now. At moments like this, partisanship becomes a luxury the nation cannot afford. The ruling party must lower its beligerance against the opposition so that both must rise above electoral rivalry and speak with one voice. A bipartisan resolution affirming Sierra Leone’s territorial integrity, condemning external aggression and backing diplomatic engagement would send a powerful signal: our politics may be competitive, but our sovereignty is not negotiable. Unity in the face of external aggression is therefore a critical shield needed at this most troubling time.
Diplomacy, But With Backbone
The statement by the Ministry of Information and Civic Education emphasised the government’s diplomatic engagement alteady initiated. Sierra Leone must pursue every diplomatic avenue — through ECOWAS, the African Union and bilateral engagement — to de-escalate tensions and clarify borders. But diplomacy is most effective when it is underwritten by national consensus and institutional preparedness. The Mano River region has known too much war to flirt casually with renewed instability. A miscalculation on either side could ripple outward, unsettling fragile economic and security gains. What is required now is firmness without frenzy. Resolve without rashness.
A Call to Conscience
There is a haunting symbolism in those images from Falaba.
Soldiers on the ground. Civilians watching. Cameras recording. History often turns on such moments. Will they become symbols of national humiliation — or catalysts for renewed unity and strategic clarity? Sierra Leone is a small nation, but small nations are not small in dignity. The land in dispute may be measured in acres, but sovereignty is immeasurable. It lives in the pride of a soldier standing upright before his people. No Sierra Leonean should be comfortable watching their defenders forced into the dust.
No citizen should shrug at the spectacle of foreign troops asserting dominance on our soil. The time has come for calm, coordinated action — for politics to give way, even if momentarily, for diplomacy to intensify and for the message to be unmistakable: Yes, Sierra Leone seeks peace. But Sierra Leone will not consent to humiliation.
