Dramatic escape for UN peackeepers

The United Nations executed a dramatic rescue mission over the weekend, freeing some 233 peacekeepers and military observers blocked since May by rebels in the eastern Sierra Leone town of Kailahun. During ‘Operation Khukri,’ one UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) peacekeeper was killed and seven injured, UNAMSIL’s military spokesman in Freetown, Lieutenant Commander Patrick Coker told IRIN on Monday. Coker said the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) suffered heavy casualties, but he was unable to give details. The UN had not received any reports of civilian casualties as many fled the area once the fighting began, Coker said. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement on Saturday that “the use of force to extract (UN) personnel from the area had become inevitable”. The 222 UN peacekeepers and 11 military observers had been surrounded by RUF rebels for over two months, the statement said. “Throughout this period, intensive diplomatic and political efforts, at all levels, to ensure their security and restore their freedom of movement by peaceful means were unsuccessful,” Annan added. Last week the RUF refused to allow the United Nations to replenish the peacekeepers’ supplies, which were running very low. The rescue operation was launched on Saturday when UNAMSIL helicopters airlifted 11 military observers and 29 peacekeepers to Freetown and the eastern town of Daru. “British helicopters assisted in the operation,” Coker told IRIN. The remaining 193 peacekeepers broke out of the camp at Kailahun, exchanging fire with the RUF. “Every opposition was repulsed,” Coker said, adding that with military support from other UN troops, the peacekeepers moved south towards Pendembu, 25 km from Kailahun, where they linked up with another UNAMSIL column that had moved up from Daru. Ghanaian, Nigerian and Indian UN forces were involved in the rescue operation. The UN troops came up against “stiff resistance” from the heavily fortified town of Pendembu, the RUF Brigade HQ in the east of the country, but were able to recover arms and ammunition and other equipment that the rebels had illegally seized from UN peacekeepers, Coker said. On Sunday, most of the UN peacekeepers were airlifted to Daru. The remainder travelled by road with their equipment to the town, located 20 km from Pendembu. When asked by the BBC on Monday if the UN would continue to use more “deadly action” in future, UN Force Commander Major General Vijay Jetley replied: “I wouldn’t like to speculate, it all depends on the situation: if we can talk and make them (the RUF) see reason. It’s not all of them who are irrational. Many of them are rational people and many of them do not want to fight any longer, which is a good thing.” Jetley added that the United Nations would welcome any member of the RUF who wanted to join the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme for former combatants. Some have apparently started doing so: Coker told IRIN on Monday that the United Nations was receiving reports of some RUF going into the disarmament camp in Daru following the military action at the weekend but he did not know how many. The military situation in Sierra Leone on Monday was reported to be “calm but all our positions are on alert”, Coker told IRIN. The rescued UNAMSIL personnel are from Bangladesh, England, The Gambia, Guinea, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Tanzania and Zambia.