Army frees relief worker

The Liberian army has released a relief worker employed by the nongovernmental organisation MERCI, a week after he was arrested by government soldiers at Bo waterside, near the Sierra Leone border, officials said on Friday. Nyeku Na was detained on 21 August as he returned from Sierra Leone, where he had sought refuge since June when rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) overran Sinje refugee camp, Grand Cape Mount County, in June. Five of MERCI's nurses were abducted by the rebels during the attack on Sinje. "He [Na] has been released, but I do not know why he was arrested in the first place," Sam Brown, executive director of the state's Liberia Refugee, Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC) told IRIN by phone from the capital, Monrovia. The abducted nurses are still in captivity. On Tuesday, 27 August, the rebels issued a statement in which they offered to release the abductees - but at Voinjama, 270 km north of Monrovia, which has been the scene of intensive fighting over the last few months. "The nurses have arrived in Voinjama, our administrative headquarters in Lofa County. We are asking all humanitarian organisations to proceed to Voinjama to receive the nurses," LURD stated. Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism Reginald Goodridge told IRIN on 22 August that government troops had recaptured Voinjama but LURD denied that on Wednesday, saying they had never lost control of the town. Humanitarian organisations, including the UN refugee agency and the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), have appealed for the nurses' release.