Kroomen

The term Krumen (also Kroumen, Kroomen) refers to historical sailors from the Kru people group living mostly along the coast of Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire. One theory, advanced in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, was that the term Kru or Krumen derived from Klao, which is the name of the Kru in their language. Their numbers were estimated to be 48,300 in 1993, of whom 28,300 were in Côte d’Ivoire. They are a subgroup of the Grebo and speak the Krumen language.