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Sierra Leone crisis could effect MONUC deployment

    NAIROBI

    Meanwhile, Eckhard said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was concerned about the possible effect of the crisis in Sierra Leone on decisions to deploy more UN troops to the DRC to oversee implementation of the Lusaka peace accord. Annan “has been saying for a while that he is concerned about the impact on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the willingness of troop contributors to enter into commitments there following the problems we have encountered in Sierra Leone,” Eckhard stated. Around 500 troops from the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) were currently believed to be detained.

    “We will just have to see what the longer term fallout is, once it is clear how this is going to end up,” Eckhard said. The ‘International Herald Tribune’ over the weekend quoted US Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke as saying Sierra Leone would cast a “potential shadow” on UN operations, acknowledging that it would now be harder to persuade the US Congress to finance peacekeeping operations in the DRC.

    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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