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Human Rights Watch has called on the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) to free all prisoners of war and abducted children, which the former rebel group promised to do in a peace agreement it signed on 7 July with Sierra Leone's government.
The New York-based non-governmental body said in a 30 August statement that, despite this undertaking, the RUF had only freed some of the children they had taken from their homes.
When the RUF invaded eastern Freetown in January, HRW said, at least 3,000 children were reported missing. HRW said some 650 children have been "unofficially released" or managed to escape. These and 345 others who were released officially, it said, all came from areas under rebel control in the western and northern parts of the country.
HRW said it asked the RUF in a letter "why there have been no releases from the eastern rebel strongholds of Kono, Magburaka and Kailahun". HRW expressed hope that the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, would put pressure on the RUF leaders to honour their peace commitments.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions