Sankoh asks RUF to disarm

ECOMOG officials and RUF leader Foday Sankoh travelled to the RUF-held areas of Segbwema and Daru in eastern Sierra Leone on Tuesday to persuade combatants to disarm, ECOMOG spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade told IRIN on Wednesday. “Over 2,000 RUF combatants, women and children said they would comply with Sankoh’s call to his followers to disarm,” he said. A UNAMSIL report on Wednesday stated that since the start of the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme on 4 November, no RUF fighters had been registered at the Daru camp. Other operational demobilisation centres at Lungi, Port Loko South, Port Loko North and Kenema have registered a total of over 600 former combatants, including AFRC, RUF and Civil Defence Force (pro-government militias) fighters. According to Olukolade, the RUF-ECOMOG trip to the east is part of an ongoing “sensitisation process” that will continue on Friday with visits to the northern town of Makeni and other areas. The leader of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, Johnny Paul Koroma, is expected to join the group on Friday, he added. The DDR programme is expected to last three years.