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Disarmament slated to end by the end of November

    ABIDJAN

    Over 25,000 ex-fighters have handed over their weapons to the authorities in Sierra Leone, where the disarmament of armed factions is due to be completed in less than four weeks, the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) says.

    As of Friday some 25,494 former combatants, including 15,995 from the pro-government Civil Defence Forces and 9,499 Revolutionary United Front (RUF)rebels, had disarmed, UNAMSIL spokesperson Margaret Novicki reported.

    Districts where disarmament is ongoing include the Western Area of the capital, Freetown, the southern district of Pujehun, and Tonkolili in the centre of the country. Kenema and Kailahun, in the diamond-rich east, will be the last two districts to join the programme, which is scheduled to end by the end of November. UNAMSIL Deputy Force Commander Maj-Gen Martin Luther Agwai visited Kenema and Kailahun on Monday to prepare the population for the start of disarmament on 15 November.

    "Everthing is going according to the timetable and there are no problems," Sierra Leone's deputy director of information, Dominin Lamin, told IRIN on Tuesday. However the disarmament programme has not been trouble-free. At the beginning of October the UN Security Council expressed concern over the slow pace of disarmament in the northern district of Bombali because only a handful of rebels had handed over weapons nearly two weeks after the programme had started. The process had been stalled after the RUF voiced a number of grievances, including its opposition to the location of the disarmament centre. It resumed following a meeting of the Joint Committee on Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration, comprising the government, UNAMSIL and RUF, and was completed on 31 October.

    Disarmament was launched in Sierra Leone on 20 October 1999 following the signing of the July 1999 Lome Peace Accord between the government and RUF. It ground to a halt in May 2000 when the RUF seized some 500 UN troops, whom they later released. The current round of disarmament started on 18 May 2001.

    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

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