RSF says rebels deliberately targeted journalists

Following their invasion of Freetown in January, the RUF rebels employed a "deliberate and systematic policy to eliminate journalists who represented a free press" according to a communique published on Monday from the Paris-based organisation, Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF).

A delegation from RSF, an organisation which defends the right to a free press, met a group of some 20 Sierra Leonean journalist refugees in Guinea at the end of June. According to RSF, the testimonies they heard confirmed a report they had published in April entitled "Sierra Leone: janvier noir
pour la presse."

From the moment the RUF entered Freetown on 6 January, the RSF press statement said, they decided to "physically eliminate journalists who criticised them or supported President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's government". According to several testimonies, the rebels had lists of journalists considered pro-government, RSF said.

Sheku Saccoh, a journalist from the Sierra Leonean 'Standard Times' and correspondent for the UK-based publications, 'Africa Analysis' and 'New African', told RSF how the rebels came to his house and found only his wife. When she refused to say where he was hiding, they killed her and burned the house, he said.