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Disarmament in the eastern district of Kono has been extended by one week effective 31 July and, despite the initial slow pace of the exercise, the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) is optimistic that the new deadline will be met, mission spokeswoman Margaret Novicki told IRIN on Tuesday.
“Disarmament has picked up considerably,” she said. There has been an “enormous improvement” in the disarmament rate and ceasefire violations have ended because Kono chiefs and elders had joined UNAMSIL Deputy Force Commander Maj-Gen Martin Agwai on his daily visits to supervise the process, she said.
The disarming of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the rival Civil Defence Forces (CDF) in diamond-rich Kono, which began on 2 July, has been dogged by mutual suspicion and some fighting. Up until 30 July, 752 RUF and 910 CDF fighters handed over their weapons whereas some 1,000 RUF and 2,500 CDF were to have done so, Novicki said.
[See separate item titled ‘SIERRA LEONE: Disarmament extended by one week in Kono’]
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