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Human Rights Watch (HRW) also condemned the killing and detention of the peacekeepers while noting that civilians had been enduring similar abuses by the rebels for several years, according to an HRW news release issued on Thursday.
Recalling that it had opposed the amnesty granted under the Lome agreement to perpetrators of atrocities, done mostly by the RUF, because it feared that impunity would only breed more atrocities, HRW said “events of this week have only confirmed our fears”.
“For the people of Sierra Leone, the civil war has never really ended,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of HRW’s Africa division. “The U.N. peacekeepers have suffered a terrible blow. But even after the peace agreement, people in villages all over the country have been subjected to rape, execution, torture, amputation and abduction by the rebels.”
Takirambudde said the peacekeepers were apparently killed while protecting their base and civilians in a rebel stronghold. He praised them for attempting to fulfill a dangerous mission which international troops in Sierra Leone have sometimes seemed reluctant to undertake.
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
