Umaru Fofana has been a journalist for over 20 years and has reported from Asia, the United States and several countries in Africa. He is based in his native Sierra Leone where he works as a freelance journalist mainly for the BBC and Reuters. He co-owns the FreeMedia Group, which operates a newspaper called Politico (www.politicosl.com) and has set up a radio station. He covered the recent West Africa Ebola outbreak for which he won a Peabody with NPR (U.S.). He has won several other awards including being named by his country’s media regulatory body as the Most Outstanding Male Journalist. He was twice elected president of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, which he had previously served as secretary-general. His coverage of the recent mudslide that left over 1,000 killed was praised at home and abroad. He studied at Fourah Bay College, the first institution of higher learning in sub-Saharan Africa, where he was elected president of the students’ union and serves as its current alumni president.

Twitter: @UmaruFofana