[1] Tombodu was RUF stronghold during the Sierra Leone civil war.

The majority of the residents in the town are from the Kono ethnic group.

The town is the birthplace of Johnny Paul Koroma, the former leader of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) military junta of Sierra Leone.

Tombodu was the site of a major massacre in 1998 during the Sierra Leone Civil war.

There is a memorial in the town containing the bones of people locked in a house and burned to death.