Annan calls for more troops

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked the Security Council to consider expanding the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), spokesman Fred Eckhard reported on Monday. Annan, in a letter sent at the end of last week to the President of the Security Council, Jeremy Greenstock, recommended that UNAMSIL be increased to "close to ten thousand military personnel". Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, had confirmed on 21 December that its troops would gradually be withdrawn from the regional Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) and repatriation would be completed by February 2000, Annan said. Ghana and Guinea are also preparing to withdraw their soldiers currently serving with ECOMOG in Sierra Leone. "I am very much concerned that the repatriation of ECOMOG troops in the immediate future, without adequate security protection provided by other peacekeepers, would create a dangerous security gap in the key areas of Lungi,just north of Freetown, and in the capital," Eckhard reported the letter as saying. Annan recommended the addition of up to four infantry battalions and support personnel and that the force be mandated to provide security at Lungi airport and at key institutions in the capital. The current UNAMSIL peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone, with an authorised strength of 6,000, is made up of units from Kenya and India as well as ECOMOG troops from Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria. The force has a mandate to cooperate with the government in the implementation of the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme. Other areas of responsibility include ensuring the security and freedom of movement of personnel in the delivery of humanitarian aid, and to encourage the parties involved to create confidence-building measures.