1. Home
  2. West Africa
  3. Sierra Leone

Focus on developments in Makeni

Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels have occupied the northern town of Makeni, expelling members of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) who had been based there, Ibrahim Sesay of the Roman Catholic relief organisation CARITAS said on Wednesday. Sesay, director of CARITAS’ Makeni office, told IRIN from Freetown that the fighting between the two factions followed the arrival of a group of RUF members from the eastern town of Kailahun and another, led by ‘Brigadier’ Issa Sesay, from Magburaka, some 20 km south of Makeni. After taking over the Teko barracks on the outskirts of Makeni, they moved into the town itself. Rev. Vittorio Bongiovanni, a Catholic missionary based in Makeni but who was evacuated to Freetown on Tuesday, gave MISNA a personal account of last Friday’s events: “At 15.30 local time the city of Makeni was overwhelmed by a heavy exchange of fire that lasted until 19.00 local time. At around 21.00 local time the shooting resumed, gaining intensity, and during the evening armed men entered our home. We were robbed of our personal belongings and two of our vehicles. “The following day we were visited by various leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), who reassured us regarding the situation, ensuring no harm was intended. They told us it was a dispute between RUF factions and the former military junta of Major Johnny Paul Koroma.” Bongiovanni, who was one of a group airlifted to Freetown on Tuesday in a WFP helicopter from Bumbuna, 40 km northeast of Makeni, concluded that they had been “hostages of a situation and not of armed groups”. Another member of the group, Bishop Giorgio Biguzzi, is quoted by MISNA as saying: “No one ever intended to kidnap us; we were just trapped in Makeni. We hope that these clashes end soon, because Sierra Leone needs peace and not violence.” Ibrahim Sesay told IRIN: “Makeni is now divided into two parts, each part controlled by the RUF. One part is controlled by Denis Mingo (the main RUF commander in the north), the other by Issa Sesay.” He added that the AFRC contingent evicted from Makeni had now moved to Kamabai, some 30 km farther north. Opinions in Freetown were varied as to the scale of underlying tensions between the RUF and the AFRC, the junta that ruled Sierra Leone from May 1997 to February 1998, when it was ousted by peacekeepers of the Economic Community of West African States Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). One source told IRIN: “This was a clash between personalities, not an organisational skirmish.” RUF leader Foday Sankoh was quoted by reporters as saying in Freetown on Tuesday: “We will displace AFRC former soldiers once and for all if they continue to attack our positions in the north as they did on Friday at Makeni and yesterday in Lunsar.” However, ECOMOG spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade told IRIN on Wednesday evening that the situation in Makeni had returned to normal and that Koroma and Sankoh had assured President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and ECOMOG Force Commander General Gabriel Kpamber at a meeting on Tuesday that the situation there would not deteriorate. Earlier, presidential spokesman Septimus Kaikai had told IRIN that a ceremony to mark the official start of the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at Wilberforce barracks in Freetown would go ahead as planned. He said that those attending the ceremony would include President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, Sankoh, Koroma, Deputy Minister of Defence Hinga Norman, Kpamber and Francis Okelo, special representative of the UN Secretary-General. “This is an indication of the commitment of all the parties to the DDR process and to the return of peace and prosperity in Sierra Leone,” Kaikai said. Olukolade confirmed to IRIN that the two rebel leaders did in fact attend the DDR launch, as did the other personalities. Humanitarian implications of events in Makeni Meanwhile, aid agencies were worried that the fighting in Makeni could have severe implications for the beneficiaries of humanitarian programmes. “There has been excessive looting of aid agencies’ offices and comandeering of vehicles,” Ibrahim Sesay told IRIN. Marc Gordon, the Action Contre la Faim (ACF) head of mission for Sierra Leone, told IRIN that all the equipment from his agency’s therapeutic feeding centre (TFC) in Makeni had been taken. “We have asked the parties involved to return all stolen properties and equipment immediately,” Gordon said. He said all the mothers who were on the TFC’s feeding programme had left the centre on Sunday due to a lack of food. “Six hundred beneficiaries have been forced from the TFC and are at great risk considering their fragile condition,” Gordon said. He said some 5,000 participants in a supplementary feeding programme run by ACF were also at high risk. However, he added that the feeding centre at Magburaka, some 20 km south-east of Makeni, was still running. Ibrahim Sesay told IRIN that several thousand civilians had fled from Makeni to nearby villages and the bush. However, another humanitarian source said that there were not believed to have been large-scale population movements from Makeni. Prior to the recent fighting, ACF had some 150 staff working in Bombali and Tonkolili districts (which include Makeni and Magburaka). Although some aid workers returned to Freetown from Bumbuna in WFP’s helicopter on Tuesday, many humanitarian workers in Makeni remained unaccounted for, largely because it has been difficult to communicate between Freetown and Makeni.

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

Share this article

Get the day’s top headlines in your inbox every morning

Starting at just $5 a month, you can become a member of The New Humanitarian and receive our premium newsletter, DAWNS Digest.

DAWNS Digest has been the trusted essential morning read for global aid and foreign policy professionals for more than 10 years.

Government, media, global governance organisations, NGOs, academics, and more subscribe to DAWNS to receive the day’s top global headlines of news and analysis in their inboxes every weekday morning.

It’s the perfect way to start your day.

Become a member of The New Humanitarian today and you’ll automatically be subscribed to DAWNS Digest – free of charge.

Become a member of The New Humanitarian

Support our journalism and become more involved in our community. Help us deliver informative, accessible, independent journalism that you can trust and provides accountability to the millions of people affected by crises worldwide.

Join