3,000 dead “conservative”, UN official says

A “conservative estimate” puts the number of dead in Freetown at 3,000 people since the start of a rebel offensive on 6 January, a senior UN official said yesterday (Monday). Kevin Kennedy, chief of OCHA’s Emergency Liaison Branch, told a press briefing that the humanitarian situation in Sierra Leone was “very serious” and could deteriorate if the current military and political situation continued. Kennedy, who was reporting on a UN mission to Sierra Leone last month, said aid agencies only had access to about a third of the country and there was little information about the northern two-thirds. Humanitarian efforts were focusing on Freetown, he said, because of a “deliberate campaign by rebels to terrorise the population through forced amputations, shootings, house burnings and rape”. He confirmed that about 150,000 people had been forced to flee the eastern suburbs where fighting was reportedly continuing. The Sierra Leone government, UN and other other aid agencies were providing assistance at six major sites in central and western Freetown. Kennedy said the food crisis, while still serious, was no longer acute as WFP and other agencies had begun a large distribution effort in the city. However conditions in hospitals and clinics were “desperate” and medical, health and sanitation needs were acute. He also expressed concern over the fate of some 12,000 Liberian refugees in the country. Given the tensions between Sierra Leone and Liberia, it was feared the refugees might be unfairly targeted for alleged sympathies with the rebel forces, he said. According to Kennedy, a UN security assessment team arrived in Freetown yesterday to acquaint itself with the situation and decide on arrangements for enabling humanitarian work to go ahead. An international humanitarian team is also in the city working with the government in its response, he said.