Committee appeals for release of abductees

The Committee for the Release of Prisoners of War and Non-Combatants in Sierra Leone has appealed to the leaders of the Revolutionary United Front Party (RUFP) and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) to let all abductees go, the UN said on Tuesday. The committee was set up in response to a request made jointly on 2 June in Lome by the government and the then Revolutionary United Front (RUF - which has since become the RUFP). It said it had seen and talked to people being held against their will, many of them women and children. More than 2,000 of the children registered as missing since the rebel occupation of Freetown in January are still unaccounted for and new abductions are occurring almost every day, the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) said. "The plight of these captives has not received the attention it deserves," UNAMSIL said, adding that the rebel leadership should show goodwill by letting all abductees go.