Security Council welcomes ceasefire agreement

The UN Security Council has welcomed the ceasefire agreement signed on Friday between Sierra Leone’s government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) with guarded optimism, saying it was a “first step” towards resuming the country’s peace process. “The Security Council will continue to do what it can to help achieve this goal,” Dutch Ambassador Peter van Walsum, council president, said on Tuesday. Mistrust of the RUF, which took UN peacekeepers hostage last May, lingers. “I believe I can safely say that given the history of Sierra Leone, there was guarded optimism” about the agreement, Van Walsum said. He said council members had called on the RUF to honour the commitments made on Friday, so that Sierra Leone “will get a real chance to find a lasting and durable solution” to the nearly decade-long conflict. The UN and Economic Community of West African States helped broker the ceasefire agreement, which is to be reviewed in 30 days.