The weapons need to go, UN official says

UN Deputy Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Carolyn McAskie said on Monday that many in the international community found it distasteful to help Sierra Leone’s fighters to disarm before assisting the victims of the fighting. This question had been long debated, she said, but the international community and Sierra Leone’s people had decided that until the fighters disarmed, the victims could not be reached. McAskie, who headed a multi-donor mission to Sierra Leone and Guinea from 7 to 13 November, said some NGOs were unwilling to fund disarmament and demobilisation, but would help pay for reintegration and a commission on reconstruction, rehabilitation and resettlement. Under the Lome Agreement, ex-combatants are supposed to report to disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) camps and surrender their weapons. Only about 1,500 out of an estimated 45,000 former fighters had handed in theirs by last Friday according to the UN Department of Public Information. Up to early November, donors had pledged about 42 percent of the estimated US $45 million needed for the DDR programme.