The Nigerian chief of army staff, Major General Victor Malu, left Freetown on Tuesday after consultations with UNAMSIL on the withdrawal of Nigeria's troops from Sierra Leone, ECOMOG spokesman Lieutenant Chris Olukolade told IRIN. Abuja will resume the pullout on 13 April, Olukolade said.
Nigeria, which provided the bulk of ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Peace Monitoring Group) troops in Sierra Leone, had informed the UN on 13 January that it would delay the withdrawal of its forces by 90 days to give the world body time to deploy its peacekeeping troops in Sierra Leone.
Meanwhile, in New York, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations announced that it had started negotiations with ranking Nigerian officials on Monday on the incorporation of Nigerian ECOMOG troops and equipment in Sierra Leone into UNAMSIL.
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
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