Sierra Leone: UN mission examines disarmament process with Government, rebels

Senior officials from the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) today met with government and rebel representatives to review progress in the disarmament process and examine ways of moving forward the overall peace effort.

The head of UNAMSIL, Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji, chaired the fourth meeting of the Joint Committee on Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) in Kenema, a follow-up to the last one held on 17 July in Bo.

At the meeting, UNAMSIL reported on progress made in the ongoing disarmament in the Kono and Bonthe Districts. The discussions also looked at the commitment of the Civil Defence Forces and the Revolutionary United Front to the disarmament programme, other developments in the Sierra Leone peace process, the national recovery programme and the future of the DDR programme.

Meanwhile, the UN's refugee agency has issued a joint communiqué with Sierra Leone's Government asking returnees who have been living in Freetown's three transit centres to vacate the premises.

The transit centres are presently sheltering more than 8,000 returnees who came back to Sierra Leone in November 2000, following fighting and insecurity in refugee camps in Guinea, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Most of the returnees currently in the transit centres are of the Kono ethnic tribe and originate from an unsafe part of Sierra Leone.

UNHCR has been organizing regular convoys from the three transit centres to other resettlement sites and hosting community projects in the east and south of Sierra Leone, but most returnees have been reluctant to move, arguing they cannot return to their home areas, the agency said. A new site will open next week in the southern Moyamba district to accommodate these returnees as close as possible to their home area. Transfers will be done on a voluntary basis but refugees who decline will eventually have to find alternative accommodations.

UNHCR is currently assisting a total of 56,373 Sierra Leoneans who have returned from Guinea since last September. Only 4,323 have been able to return to their homes in safety. The rest are being accommodated and assisted in temporary resettlement sites and hosting community projects until their areas are declared safe for a permanent return.