Guinea-Bissau Civil War

The presidential palace lay in ruins, until 2013
An abandoned tank in the capital, Bissau, in 2003

The Guinea-Bissau Civil War was a civil war that was fought in Guinea-Bissau. It started with a coup d'état of Ansumané Mané, who was a general in the armed forces, against president João Bernardo Vieira. This coup took place on 7th of June 1998. What followed was a civil war of almost a year. Troops of neighboring countries Sénégal and Guinea were also involved in the war. The civil war ended, when President Viera was forcefully deposed on 8th of May 1999.

The war was a disaster for the country. Guinea-Bissau had about 1.1 million people. About 400.000 of these (a third, roughly) became internal refugees. More than 8500 people fled the country. Tens of thousands lived in refugee camps around the capital, Bissau. The war also destroyed most of the country's infrastructure. In 1998, the the economy shrank by about 40 percent.After the war, the economy took many years to recover. There was political unrest, and government often changed.

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