Guinea hands back disputed border village

Guinea has agreed to hand back to Sierra Leone the disputed border village of Yenga, according to joint communique signed by the presidents of the two countries. Guinea had occupied Yenga, situated in Kailahun district near the point where the borders of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia meet, since 1998. Guinean troops moved into the village to support Sierra Leone government forces in their civil war against the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel movement and then remained there. However, the civil war officially ended in January 2002 and Sierra Leonean President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and Guinean President Lansana Conte agreed at a meeting in the Guinean capital Conakry last Thursday that Yenga belonged to Sierra Leone and there would be no further dispute over its ownership. "The village of Yenga belongs to Sierra Leone," they said in a joint communique, citing a 1912 treaty between Britain and France, the former colonial powers, demarcating the border between the two countries. The communique, which was only published on Monday, said Conte had given his Sierra Leonean counterpart an assurance "that there will never be any conflicts between the republics of Sierra Leone and Guinea." It denied rumours that Sierra Leone had sold Yenga to Guinea. The two heads of state, who met on the sidelines of a summit of the West African Monetary Zone, agreed to send their interior ministers to visit Yenga on 6 September to reassure the local population and clear up any misunderstandings. The ministers were also mandated to make joint arrangements for the deployment of security personel "in order to prevent any mischief." The border dispute came to prominence last month when Sierra Leone's Security Minister, George Banda Thomas, visited Conakry to discuss the issue with Guinea's Interior Minister Kiridi Bangoura following complaints by residents in Yenga that they were being harassed by the Guinean authorities. Yenga is situated in a sensitive zone close to diamond mining areas in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. Armed insurgents fighting the governments of all three countries have been active in the area in recent years.