Seven states to send troops to Sierra Leone

Defence officials of seven West African states agreed on Thursday to send 3,000 troops to help end the conflict in Sierra Leone, ECOWAS Director of Information Adrienne Diop told IRIN. The pledge came at the end of a two-day meeting of defence ministers and chiefs of military staff from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Diop said each unit of a contributing country would try to meet its own logistics and equipment needs, but “they will still need help from the UN and international community”. She declined to name the states that have promised troops until their heads of state authorise the planned deployment. An eight-year rebel war had ended in Sierra Leone in July 1999, when the government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) signed a peace agreement in Lome, Togo. UN troops were subsequently sent to replace a mainly-Nigerian ECOWAS peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, but as the West African peacekeepers departed at the start of May, the RUF began attacking and detaining members of the UN force. Many UN troops are still being detained by the rebels.