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Two senior Revolutionary United Front (RUF) commanders, Dennis Mingo and Mike Lamine, were released on Monday, Sierra Leone's presidential spokesman, Septimus Kaikai, told IRIN.
The two men were kidnapped last week in Rogberi, some 80 km east of Freetown, by members of the former Sierra Leone Army (ex-SLA).
Mingo, based in Makeni, is said to be responsible for much of the Northern Province of Sierra Leone.
The ex-SLA and the RUF became allies in 1997 when the then Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) overthrew President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and invited the rebels to join it in Freetown. After the West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, overthrew the AFRC/RUF in 1998, the allies took to the bush.
A 7 July agreement between the RUF and the government ended the fighting, but ex-SLA members later launched a series of kidnappings, charging that the accord neglected them.
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