Rebels leaving the bush, sources say

Civilians and former junta soldiers have been leaving the bush for Freetown and other provincial towns since the signing
of the Lome peace accord on 7 July, sources in the Sierra Leonean capital told IRIN.

Care's Country Director in Freetown said that on 8 July, ECOMOG asked two of its relief trucks to bring back 118 abducted civilians to the capital from Makpele Junction, located between Port Loko and Masiaka, northeast of Freetown. Many of the released civilians were teachers and students, he told IRIN.

Other reliable sources said they had heard reports of 250 ex-soldiers who had served under the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) junta gathering in Waterloo, on the outskirts of Freetown, apparently from the RUF stronghold of Occra Hills. There have also been reports of several hundred former junta soldiers in the Port Loko area.

A UNOMSIL spokesperson said former junta soldiers and rebels tended to come out of the bush in small groups of no more than about 60.

A humanitarian source who was Wednesday in Lunsar - on the road between Freetown and the northern town of Makeni - told IRIN that former junta soldiers had started to register themselves for enrolment on the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration programme. "These people are very keen to jump on trucks and come to Freetown," the source said.

Sullay Sesay, reintegration officer for the National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (NCDDR), a state body, told IRIN on Friday that the government had been alerted by ECOMOG to the arrival of hundreds of former junta soldiers from the bush last week but that very few had been registered so far.

Sesay said the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service was making regular announcements of the location of registration sites in the Western area to encourage those former combatants staying with friends and relatives to register. "The government wants a proper registration to take place," Sesay said.

The NCDDR met in Freetown on Thursday to discuss policy relating to the DDR programme. According to UNOMSIL, one issue of concern is that many ex-combatants have been arriving in towns without their weapons and that incentives needed to be found to encourage them to hand them over.