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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Maninka of Liberia

The Maninka of Liberia, numbering approximately 79,000 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are described as a Maninka community of the broader Manding peoples descended from the Mali Empire that preserves its Maninkakan language, trading traditions, and Mande cultural heritage in Liberia They are an Diaspora people, with Maninka as their ethnic/kinship group and are in the Malinke people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African Peoples. They mostly adhere to Folk Islam and Eastern Maninkakan is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Maninka

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Liberia
People Cluster: Malinke
Primary Language(s): Eastern Maninkakan (emk)
Primary Religion(s): Folk Islam
Population: 79,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Engaged yet Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG013516
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Pray for the Maninka of Liberia

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Folk Islam
Religious Affiliation: Islam

52%
%
Folk Islam Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Eastern Maninkakan
Language Family: Mande

100%
%
Maninkakan, Eastern Speakers

Media Resources in Eastern Maninkakan:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film

1 film

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Eastern Maninkakan:

No Bible resources are listed for this language.

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Eastern Maninkakan bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

SPI: Unreached yet Engaged

The Maninka are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Next steps for the Maninka:
Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

Pray specifically for the Maninka of Liberia

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
read1 John 4:10

Pray for those without the hope of Christ to understand the depth of God's love and the sacrifice He made for them.

"O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me."
readJohn 17:25

Pray that the lost will come to know the Father and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent, and that they will be filled with His love and grace.

Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
readPsalm 51:9

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will have confidence that God has turned His face from their sins and forgiven their iniquities.

For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”
readActs 13:47

Pray that as people come to faith, they will follow the Lord's leading to go to their neighbors and share the treasure they found in Christ.

Maninka, Eastern Across Countries (ROP3 - 106265) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

4 people groups

PhotoPeople Group IDNameCountryPopulation ▼Strategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
ManinkaPG013424ManinkaGuinea3,880,000Engaged yet UnreachedEastern ManinkakanFolk Islam
Eastern ManinkaPG048618Eastern ManinkaMali698,000Engaged yet UnreachedEastern ManinkakanSunni Islam
ManinkaPG014290ManinkaSierra Leone190,000Engaged yet UnreachedEastern ManinkakanFolk Islam
ManinkaPG013516ManinkaLiberia79,000Engaged yet UnreachedEastern ManinkakanFolk Islam

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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