Mobs and robbers

摘要

A MAN came too close and asked for directions. Your correspondent noticed that he had stolen her mobile phone. She alerted a woman running a nearby cigarette stall. A crowd quickly assembled by the road, and decided to take the law into its own hands. Siena Leone's police are notoriously corrupt; the courts are slow and ineffective. As in many poor countries, the alternative to police brutality is not always justice. Sometimes it is a lynch mob.