Children released

RUF rebels released 21 children this week in Kontakuma, some 115 km northeast of Freetown, RUF legal representative Omrie Golley told IRIN. A senior official with the regional peacekeeping force,ECOMOG, told AFP the children had been with the rebels in Lunsar, some 90 km northeast of Freetown. They reportedly walked some 25 km from Lunsar to Kontakuma. The children were given food and drink by ECOMOG before being taken to the capital in Freetown, AFP reported. Deterioration in humanitarian situation “The humanitarian situation in Sierra Leone has deteriorated with the advent of the rainy season,” according to the most recent report by the UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Unit (HACU). The Sierra Leone government and aid agencies lack the capacity to meet the most urgent needs of rising numbers of displaced, the report adds. Humanitarian agencies have expressed particular concern over the condition of the displaced living in Kenema, Daru and Blama in Sierra Leone’s Eastern Province. Although Kenema has the largest concentration of displaced outside Freetown, it has the least “humanitarian capacity” according to HACU. According to MERLIN - one of the few agencies operational in the Kenema area - household food insecurity is a serious problem with 6 percent of the population living off the bush and 20 percent relying on relief food. As there has been no general food distribution since April, more and more displaced have been admitted to MERLIN’s therapeutic feeding centre, stretching the agency’s capacity. Humanitarian access improves Although the signing of the ceasefire did not immediately translate into “free and unhindered access” into much of northern Sierra Leone, it enabled relief agencies to assess some RUF-occupied areas. HACU interprets the apparent success of these missions, during which RUF soldiers were encountered without incident, as a measure of the rebels’ commitment to peace. In the coming weeks the humanitarian community in Sierra Leone hopes to conduct inter-agency assessment missions by road and helicopter to areas which have so far been inaccessible. For each of these missions, agencies maintain, the security of humanitarian personnel and beneficiaries must be guaranteed. HACU notes that humanitarian priorities were among the first set of issues upon which the parties to the conflict at Lome reached agreement. “These have been taken as a clear mandate for humanitarian assistance across the entire country independent of a final peace settlement,” HACU said.