ECOMOG kills 80 rebels, captures 50

ECOMOG troops in Sierra Leone killed at least 80 rebels and captured 50 others in Magbontoso on Tuesday in a mopping up operation near Freetown, the capital, the country’s Information Ministry reported. But ECOMOG officials in Freetown told IRIN today that the casualty figures could not be immediately confirmed. The ministry quoted an ECOMOG spokesman in Sumbuya, close to Magbontoso, as saying: “We are mopping up in the hills. We have crushed the rebel threat to Freetown.” Aid workers from the area around Magbontoso said the bodies of dead rebels were being washed downstream.