Gay, but in mourning (in Economist)

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"We live in fear" said Fanny Ann Eddy, Sierra Leone's best known lesbian, a few months before she was murdered. Her body was found last week. She had been working late at the country's only gay-rights group. She was alone when one or more assailants broke in, raped her, stabbed her head and broke her neck.

Homosexuality is illegal in Sierra Leone, but the law is vague and more likely to e "enforced" by vigilantes than by the police. The country has just emerged from civil war, so few Sierra Leoneans think gay issues pressing. Those who do consider the subject find it distasteful. Given the "sizzling" beauty of Sierra Leoneans women, "who would want to be gay in Sierra Leone?" asks Kingsley Linton, a local journalist. He adds, with relief, that gays in his country "know they have to do their thing in the dark".

Most Africans abhor homosexuality. According to Behind the Mask, a lobby group, 33 out of 54 Africa countries ban it. Where it is legal, this is often because politicians deny it exists, and so have not bothered to ban it.

Only in South Africa does the state actively protect gay rights, though Burkina Faso is also quite tolerant , perhaps because of a tradition of religiously sanctioned lesbianism among the women of the Dagar tribe. In no African country does more than a minority approve of gays. Throughout the continent, "homophobic attacks go unpunished", Ms Eddy told the UN Commission on Human Rights in March. Her murderers will probably not be caught.