Urgent attention needed , Robinson says

Sierra Leone requires urgent international attention if it is to overcome its recent history of horrendous human rights abuses, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said on Friday.

“Having seen the suffering of so many women and girls held as virtual sex slaves, of children and men young and old who have lost limbs as a result of a deliberate policy of amputation, I am more determined than ever to ensure that we focus international concern and attention on Sierra Leone,” she said.

Ending a two-day visit to the war-torn country, Robinson said in Freetown she was “deeply shocked” by the extent and cruelty against civilians committed for the most part by members of the RUF during its January assault on the Sierra Leonean capital. Earlier, Robinson visited victims of that incursion and of other attacks carried out during the country’s eight-year war.

She said that with peace talks in Lome at a crucial stage, international support to Sierra Leone was vital. Among the measures that could be taken in the short term, she said, were international help to document human rights violations in the country as a step towards establishing accountability, increasing the number of human rights monitors in the country, and working with the government and the society at large to create a “human rights infrastructure in the country”.