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Another 107 children regained their freedom on Monday in Sierra Leone when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) released them to UN officials in Makeni, about 180 km northeast of Freetown, UNAMSIL reported.
UNAMSIL - the UN Mission in Sierra Leone - said 62 of the children were girls, while 45 were their babies and dependent siblings. Among the girls, 11 were pregnant and another 33 were breast-feeding their infants. Most of the child mothers were between 14 and 17 years old and many had been abducted by the RUF from the Western and Southern provinces since January 1999, UNAMSIL reported.
The RUF’s commander of women and children, Agnes Manning, handed over the girls to UNAMSIL Child Protection Adviser Bituin Gonzalez, and appealed to UNAMSIL to care for the children. Gonzalez said that since the first major release of children on 25 May, UNAMSIL had been focusing its efforts on obtaining the release of girls and was gratified that the first such release had taken place.
The children were taken to an interim care centre run by Caritas-Makeni in Port Loko, 60 km northeast of Freetown. They are to be transported to child protection agencies in their home regions and eventually reunited with their families.
Monday’s release brings to 1,170 the number of children the RUF has handed over to UNAMSIL since 25 May. The RUF said that in a few weeks it would release more girls from the areas of Kamakwie and Magburaka in the north, and the eastern areas of Kono, Pendembu and Tongo.
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
