Villagers report 22 dead in RUF attack

Twenty-two people were killed in an attack by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Henekuma, a village in northern Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL reported villagers as saying.

“However, only nine bodies of adults and children were visible,” UNAMSIL (UN Mission in Sierra Leone) said on Saturday, after its officials inspected the site, located in the district of Koinadugu. The RUF fighters, under the command of Demba Marrah, burnt down 25 dwellings in the 19 July attack.

UNAMSIL Force Commander Lt-Gen Daniel Opande and his deputy, Maj-Gen Martin Agwai, visited the area and appealed to the pro-government Civil Defence Forces (CDF) fighters defending the village to refrain from retaliating. Opande said the UN force would “have the culprits hunted down and brought to book”. He then flew to Yiraia, another northern location, where Henekuma residents had told him Marrah might be found. However, CDF fighters were holding the village, having captured it from the RUF on Thursday, UNAMSIL reported.

Agwai visited the CDF-held village of Masundu and Njaima-Minkor, controlled by the RUF, where he witnessed the disarmament of 128 CDF and 82 RUF fighters. The disarmament of thousands of ex-fighters has unfolded slowly in Kono District. Its completion was first set for 28 July and then rescheduled to 31 July, but is unlikely to meet that target date, Opande said on radio. Since 2 July, 304 RUF and 454 CDF have turned in their guns.

A UNAMSIL official told IRIN that on Saturday more CDF fighters handed in their weapons in the districts of Kambia and Port Loko, north of Freetown, where disarmament officially ended on 28 May.