Humanitarian bodies to re-evaluate security

Sierra Leone's humanitarian community will re-evaluate the security situation for the resumption of relief operations in up-country sites following the abduction of two RUF commanders on Monday, the UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Unit (HACU) for that country has said.

The World Food Programme (WFP) and its partners, HACU said, have postponed food convoys to Makeni, 140 km northeast of Freetown, because of the incident. The convoys had been planned for Tuesday.

"The agencies concerned called back their staff members to Freetown this afternoon for consultation on how to safely implement large-scale food programmes given the current security environment," HACU reported on Tuesday.

It said leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the allied Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC - former military junta) in Makeni were actively cooperating in this process.

Concern over security resurfaced when 30 armed men arrested a team of RUF/AFRC, UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) and ECOMOG officials on their way back from Makeni on Monday, HACU said. The assailants, thought to be disgruntled members of the AFRC, robbed their victims of personal clothing, radio handsets, satellite phones and bullet-proof jackets.

Four UNOMSIL military observers and two members of ECOMOG, the West African peacekeeping force, were later released. However, the RUF members "were stripped naked and mistreated", HACU said. The detained RUF commanders are Mike Lamin and Denis Mingo. AFRC officer Idrissa Kamara escaped.

"This particular rebel group have been associated with a number of incidents in he recent past, including the commandeering of relief vehicles, theft of relief items and harassment of drivers and passengers plying the Freetown-Masiaka-Makeni routes," HACU said.