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Need for human rights monitors stressed

Plans to reduce the number of human rights monitors in the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) were “unacceptable”, Amnesty International said on Friday. In a statement received by IRIN, Amnesty said the UNOMSIL human rights section was being “weakened dramatically” when abuses against civilians were worsening. Amnesty was receiving daily reports of atrocities committed by rebel forces, and “hundreds of unarmed civilians” had been deliberately and arbitrarily killed by rebel forces in Freetown since 6 January, the statement said. It added that ECOMOG and Civil Defence Forces had summarily executed captured rebels or suspected rebel supporters and that indiscriminate aerial bombardments on densely-populated areas of Freetown had resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties. \

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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