The Northern Kissi of Sierra Leone, numbering approximately 72,500 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are described as a Mel-speaking people whose pre-colonial kingdom centered on the Makona River Basin was incorporated into the British Sierra Leone Protectorate after 1896, historically renowned for ironworking and still known for basket weaving on vertical looms They are an Indigenous people, with Kissi as their ethnic/kinship group and are in the Atlantic people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African Peoples. They mostly adhere to Animism and Northern Kissi is their primary language.