25/10/2007 16:46 FREETOWN, Oct 25 (AFP)

Lebanese-owned shops looted after death of Sierra Leone girl

Scores of Sierra Leonean youths rampaged across the capital Freetown ransacking over a dozen shops owned by Lebanese traders from early Thursday, police said.

The riots in the war-scarred and desperately impoverished west African country were sparked by the death of a local teenage girl allegedly at the hands of a Lebanese gems dealer in the eastern diamond-rich town of Kenema.

Police assistant inspector general Elizabeth Turay said the 18-year-old Alima Kamara died in a "suspected murder" case on Monday in Kenema, some 300 kilometres (190 miles) east of Freetown.

Lebanese diamond dealer Mohamed Basma, 40, and a friend of the dead girl, Victoria Jarret, were being questioned by police in Freetown, police officials said.
Police moved in to restore order and protect the shops based in downtown Freetown, where scores of youths rioted and looted electric power generators, mobile phones and an array of household goods.

"It is a great shock, what has been done to Lebanese shops," head of the 10,000-strong Lebanese community in Sierra Leone, Sani Hassaniyeh told AFP, adding all Lebanese outfits including schools had been closed as a result.

Sierra Leone has had a large Lebanese business community over the past four decades, since many settled there after independence from Britain in 1961.

©2007 AFP