Secretary-General deplores hostage-taking

Ex-members of the former Sierra Leonean Army (ex-SLA) were on Thursday still holding more than a score of UN officials, ECOMOG soldiers, journalists and other persons taken hostage on Wednesday, humanitarian sources told IRIN.

A statement issued on Thursday from UN Headquarters said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was "deeply concerned" by their detention. "The Secretary-General deplores this serious incident and urges the armed group to release all detainees immediately and without condition," the statement read.

"He also calls on the Government of Sierra Leone and RUF leader Foday Sankoh, as well as ECOWAS and its military group ECOMOG to do their utmost to seek the earliest release of all detained personnel and to ensure the safety and security of all international staff assisting the Sierra Leonean people to implement the Lome peace agreement," it said.

The group had gone to the rebel stronghold of Occra Hills, some 70 km from Freetown, on Wednesday to collect abducted children the insurgents had purportedly promised to hand over. A few civilians, including three members of the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL), were released on Wednesday evening, a humanitarian source in Freetown told IRIN on Thursday.

UN officials have been in contact with Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leader Foday Sankoh who promised to send two of his senior commanders to resolve the crisis, the source told IRIN.

The source said UN officials in Freetown had also contacted Steve Williams, head of the Organisation for the Survival of Mankind (OSM) - which the RUF describes as its humanitarian wing - and that Williams promised something would be resolved by late Thursday.

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Sierra Leone, Francis Okello, was due to brief the Security Council on Thursday on the hostage situation. A humanitarian source told IRIN ECOMOG's force commander had been in New York since Wednesday for conversations with donors and the UN Security Council on the composition of peacekeeping forces in Sierra Leone.

The hostage taking is possibly the most serious incident since the signing of a peace agreement on 7 May in Lome between the Sierra Leone government and the RUF. The abductors reportedly complained that the peace pact had not taken the ex-SLA into consideration and claimed that their leader, Johnny Paul Koroma, was being detained by the RUF.

Koroma headed the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) which ousted Sierra Leone President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah in May 1997 and ruled jointly with the RUF until it was dislodged by ECOMOG in February 1998. Since then, there has been little news of him.

Humanitarian needs expected to triple, Annan says

The numbers of people needing help, now limited to 500,000, is expected to triple as humanitarian access increases throughout the country, UN Secretary-General said in his latest report on Sierra Leone, sent to the Security Council on Monday.

Despite initial delays, humanitarian assessment missions have been completed or are underway in the rebel controlled areas of Makeni, Kailahun, Buedu, Rokupr and Lunsar while civilian needs have also been assessed in government controlled areas such as Yele, Port Loko, Daru, Kabala, Songo and the Rogbert-Masiaka corridor, the report said.

These assessments have revealed acute shortages of food and medicine resulting in malnutrition as well as outbreaks of dysentry, cholera, measles and meningitis. Difficult overland access continues to delay food shipments to districts such as Bo and Kenema in the southeast of the country, the report said.

A mission at the end of July to Makeni district in northern Sierra Leone revealed a "catastrophic humanitarian situation" according to Action Contre la Faim (ACF). In Makeni town over 30 percent of children under the age of five years surveyed were found to be malnourished. Nutritional surveys in four surrounding villages found that the percentage of malnourished children in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the district was even higher, ACF said.

The latest Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal, which requested US $27.9 million for humanitarian programmes in Sierra Leone is only 26 percent funded, Annan reported.

Security Council responds to Annan's report

Members of the Security Council on Wednesday emphasised the desperate humanitarian situation in Sierra Leone and said they would be working urgently on a positive response to Annan's proposals for strengthening the mission there, according to the UN Department of Public Information (DPI) in New York.

Annan recommends strengthening UNOMSIL mission

Annan recommended strengthening UNOMSIL, including increasing the number of military observers from 70 to 210 and sending additional civilian, political, civil affairs and human rights staff.

On the human rights side, Annan proposed that the present human rights component be increased by 10 international human rights officers including two child protection officers.

UN delegation visits Sierra Leone

A UN team was in Freetown on Tuesday to support the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) and a Human Rights Commission (HRC), as provided for in the Lome Agreement.

The HRC is designed to strengthen the existing machinery for addressing grievances of victims of human rights violations while the TRC will deal with the question of rights abuses committed since the beginning of armed conflict in 1991.

Joint Implementation Committee to meet on 9 August

In his report Annan said periodic reviews of the implementation of the Lome Peace Agreement, signed on 7 July, would be undertaken by a Joint Implementation Committee (JIC).

The JIC will include members of the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace, the ECOWAS Committee of Seven on Sierra Leone, and the moral guarantors of the agreement including the Government of Togo, the UN, OAU and the Commonwealth of Nations. It will be chaired by ECOWAS and meet at least once every three months. Its first meeting is planned for 9 August in Freetown to coincide with the ministerial meeting of the ECOWAS Committee of Seven on Sierra Leone.

As part of the expansion of UNOMSIL, Annan recommended that a small secretariat will be established for the JIC to monitor respective areas of concern, mainly human rights, refugees and displaced persons.

AI asks Security Council to clarify position on impunity

Meanwhile, Amnesty International said on Wednesday that the Security Council should clarify its position on the blanket amnesty provided by the peace agreement, according to an AI news release.

The organisation has written to each member of the Security Council also urging that they recommend and support an effective international mechanism for investigating human rights abuses in order to establish accountability.

In his report to the Security Council, the UN Secretary General said he instructed his Special Representative to sign the Lome Accord with the proviso that the United Nations "holds the understanding that the amnesty and pardon of article 1X of the agreement shall not apply to international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious violations of international humanitarian law.