Former soldiers who fled to Sierra Leone start coming home

The first batch of Liberian government soldiers who fled into Sierra Leone during the latter stages of the country's civil war has returned home. The group of 145 former combatants arrived at the border in a convoy of Sierra Leone police trucks on Wednesday. They were handed over to the Liberian authorities, who have granted them an amnesty, under the watchful eye of UN and Red Cross officials. The former combatants sang Liberian gospel hymns as the five trucks rumbled over the international bridge across the Mano River to the Liberian border settlement of Bo Waterside. "My Lord has done it again, Praise God Hallelujah!" the former soldiers chanted as the heavily guarded trucks came to a halt on the Liberian side of the border. They arrived wearing blue baseball caps and carrying possessions in small shoulder bags. Altogether 435 fighters loyal to former president Charles Taylor fled with their weapons into Sierra Leone in 2002 and 2003 as the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement advanced through western Liberia. After crossing the border the soldiers and militia men were arrested, disarmed and held in two special camps where many of them subsequently received training in vocational skills with the help of a US $1.2 million grant from the European Union. Captain Alex Roberts of the Armed Forces of Liberia, told IRIN on Wednesday that he and his men had been chased into Sierra Leone by advancing rebel forces in Grand Mount Cape county. He said they had been well treated during their period of confinement, but were "happy to be back in our homeland." "We learned skills such as building, construction, carpentry, tailoring and shoe-making among others, that we can practice here at home to sustain ourselves instead of forming part of armed groups," Roberts said. The governments of Liberia and Sierra Leone signed a preliminary agreement in October to repatriate the fugitive Liberian fighters. The same deal also provided for the return of about 250 Sierra Leoneans who were disarmed by UN peacekeepers in Liberia after fighting for various factions during the country's 14-year civil war. A final agreement for the return of the 435 Liberians in Sierra Leone was signed last month. Officials said a second batch of them would be repatriated next week. But Moses Jarbo, the Executive Director of Liberia's National Commission on Disarmament, Demobilisation, Reintegration and and Rehabilitation said the question of repatriating Sierra Leonean fighters from Liberia would be decided by the United Nations and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in due course. UN peacekeepers disarmed about 600 foreign combatants in Liberia after the civil war ended in August 2003. The overwhelming majority were from Guinea and Sierra Leone.