Troops beefed up on Liberian border

Sierra Leone has beefed up its armed forces on the border with Liberia to prevent a possible spillover of the escalating conflict between the Liberian government and armed rebels, UN officials told IRIN on Tuesday.

The Sierra Leone Army, SLA, had deployed to secure the border areas and ensure no armed Liberians crossed over, the spokesperson of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), Margaret Novicki, said in the capital, Freetown.

UNAMSIL, Novicki added, would also maintain “a lot of troops” in five sectors on Sierra Leone’s eastern border, including Koidu and Kenema, and continue regular aerial patrols with MI24 attack helicopters.

The border areas were, however, hard to police because, apart from two official crossings, 27 unofficial ones existed, she said. UN forces had so far identified about 50 armed Liberians who had crossed the border, while the SLA and police were holding more, Novicki added.

Contacts have been initiated contacts with Liberian and regional leaders over the possible spillover. On 28 May, UNAMSIL’s force commander met the Liberian defense minister at Bo Waterside in western Liberia, while Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special representative recently met the leaders of Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and the regional integration body, ECOWAS.

Annan reported on 19 June to the UN Security Council that Liberian army elements and Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy rebels had often raided Sierra Leonean villages for food. The government of Sierra Leone had also expressed concern about the possible existence of armed Liberians among refugees in the south and east, he added

“There is a real risk that Liberia and Sierra Leone could be trapped in a vicious circle with civil war continuously swinging back and forth between them,” Annan said. “It is therefore important for the international community to act quickly to address the conflict in Liberia.”

Various agencies, alarmed by the border situation, were developing contingency plans in the event of a refugee influx or spontaneous return of Sierra Leoneans from Liberia, officials of the Office for the Coordination Affairs, OCHA, in Freetown said. A site in the southern town of Bo was being considered to accommodate 50,000 people, while Jembe camp, also in Bo, was being extended to accommodate 6,000 refugees, up from 4,000.

Local media in Freetown reported on Tuesday that since the beginning of the year, armed Liberians had staged eight attacks on Buedu and other areas in eastern Sierra Leone’s Kailahun district.