Sierra Leone Rebels Free Some Hostages Ongoing Crisis Threatens West African Nation’S Fragile Peace
A former junta official headed into the forests of Sierra Leone on Monday, hoping to gain the release of about 20 hostages being held by his onetime rebel colleagues.
Several hours later, the soldiers freed four more hostages and promised to free the remainder today, according to a top government official.
The official said he had received word by radio that three U.N. military observers and a Sierra Leonean journalist had left the soldiers’ camp and had reached a government-controlled checkpoint.
He provided few other details, except to say that one U.N. observer had asked to stay behind as a confidence-building measure to ensure the freedom of the rest of the hostages today.
Earlier Monday, Abdulai Mustapha, a special assistant to President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, said that former junta official Idrissa Kamara had returned to the soldiers’ camp to seek the freedom of the prisoners.
Kamara was captured by his former junta colleagues Friday after he tried to negotiate a hostage release. He was freed Sunday morning with five U.N. drivers but returned that night to help negotiate the release of 13 more hostages.
It was not immediately clear if Kamara, who is now a top adviser to rebel Revolutionary United Front leader Foday Sankoh, had left the camp.
The remaining hostages include 10 soldiers from the West African intervention force known as ECOMOG and two members of the Sierra Leone army.
About 150 civilians who had been taken hostage during Sierra Leone’s civil war are also expected to be freed today, the official said.
The reported releases came six days after a group of former junta soldiers seized 35 people outside Freetown, sparking a crisis that has highlighted the divisions among Sierra Leone’s rebels and jeopardized the West African nation’s fragile peace.
“They treated us fine,” Chernor Bangura, a cameraman for Sierra Leone state television, said in a telephone interview. “We were given one meal a day and tea in the morning.”