The founder of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association, FannyAnn Eddy, was murdered in the organization's offices Sept. 28.
Reports said she was raped repeatedly and stabbed and her neck was broken.
'To all of us who knew her and shared the great privilege of her wit, sense of the absurd, steely determination, intelligence, and unwillingness to let bureaucracy and lies stand in the way of justice, our loss is incomprehensibly great,' said Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.
'FannyAnn Eddy was a person of extraordinary bravery and integrity, who literally put her life on the line for human rights,' said Scott Long, director of Human Rights Watch's LGBT project. 'Again and again, within her country's borders and beyond, she drew attention to the harassment, discrimination and violence lesbian and gay people face in Sierra Leone.'
Eddy, 30, was part of the delegation IGLHRC and Human Rights Watch took to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva last spring to advocate for the failed Resolution on Sexual Orientation and Human Rights.
She leaves behind a 9-year-old son. Donations to support the boy and the Sierra Leone gay group are being collected by the African gay Web site Behind the Mask, www.mask.org .za.
Sierra Leone is located in West Africa on the Atlantic Ocean between Guinea and Liberia. Its population is 5.9 million. About two-thirds of working-age people engage in subsistence farming. Average yearly income is around $500.
The 1991 to 2002 civil war between the government and the Revolutionary United Front resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of more than 2 million people, many of whom are now refugees in neighboring countries.