'Liberian troops kidnapped 17'
2002-08-12 22:46
Freetown - Sierra Leonean officials have identified the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) as being behind a kidnapping last month in which 17 Sierra Leoneans are being held hostage, sources said on Monday.
Officials from the west African state were reviewing a report by defence ministry officials who met with their Liberian counterparts recently to secure the release of the 17 hostages.
They said details of the report would be disclosed later but
added that the three-member team, which was in Liberia on a
fact-finding mission, concluded that the kidnappers were members of the Armed Forces of Liberia.
The sources said the hostages were being held in Liberia's Faya district. They said the Liberian army commander in Faya, Sam
Powell, met the Sierra Leonean team and assured them that the
"issue will be resolved shortly."
AFL soldiers kidnapped 27 people from the villages of Sanga,
Kolo and Mandopolahun in the eastern Kailahun district bordering
Liberia on July 17.
Looted
They looted food and goods and used the people they had
kidnapped as porters. Ten of the abducted people managed to escape and have returned to Sierra Leone.
The oldest man abducted was an 80-year-old named Bockarie Morie while the youngest were six children aged only two.
A week after the first kidnapping, unidentified armed men from
Liberia kidnapped 18 other people, including women, from the Kokobu region of Kailahun district.
On Sunday, John Watkins, the British commander of an
international military training team in Sierra Leone said security had been tightened in border areas to prevent a civil war in neighbouring Liberia from spilling over.
Watkins said: "Both sides in the Liberian conflict see Sierra
Leone as sort of safe haven which could provide easy access to food and supply. This is what we are trying to prevent."
The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD)
rebel group launched a campaign in 1999 to overthrow President
Charles Taylor. Fighting has intensified since May this year.
Sierra Leone has just emerged from a brutal 10-year civil war
that is thought to have claimed some 200 000 lives.
Liberian President Charles Taylor was widely accused of arming
and backing the Sierra Leonean rebels in return for the so-called
"blood diamonds" mined by them.
- Sapa-AFP
- SAPA