Another 25 UN troops flown to Monrovia

Another 25 UN soldiers of the 139 detainees freed recently by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) have been flown from their holding point in the Liberian border town of Foya to Monrovia, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said on Tuesday.

Fifteen others had been flown to Monrovia over the weekend.

The latest arrivals bring to 40 those now in the Liberian capital, but the RUF is still detaining 350 UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) members.

A Liberian helicopter has returned to Foya to fetch another batch of the UNAMSIL troops whom the RUF released following the intervention of Liberian President Charles Taylor. “We hope to fly all the released detainees from Monrovia to Freetown as quickly as possible,” Eckhard told reporters.

Liberia’s acting minister of information, Alexander Kulue, told IRIN on Tuesday that the RUF was willing to release another 30 UN detainees who were suffering from bullet wounds inflicted during their capture. He said the detainees could not be moved by truck to Foya and that Taylor had appealed to the international community today for help to evacuate them.

Kulue said a Liberian government negotiating team was in Sierra Leone trying to obtain the release of the remaining UN soldiers detained by the RUF.

Meanwhile, Eckhard said the Sierra Leonean capital had been free of fighting for the last 24 hours. In addition, another 150 Indian peacekeepers arrived in Freetown on Tuesday, while the rest of their unit, 600 men, are expected tomorrow, he said.

With the improved security in Freetown, UNAMSIL has returned to the capital all its international civilian staff, who had been relocated last week to Banjul, Gambia.