Voter registration extended in Sierra Leone, UN mission says

Sierra Leone's National Electoral Commission has extended by three days, voter registration for the country's impending elections the United Nations Mission(UNAMSIL) announced today.

The two-week registration period - originally scheduled to end today - will now continue until 10 February. The elections themselves, at which Sierra Leoneans will vote for a president and members of parliament, are slated for 14 May.

The announcement comes just three days after UNAMSIL's Deputy in charge of Governance and Stabilization, Alan Doss, issued a call to the people of Sierra Leone to sign up in greater numbers to vote, and less than a month after the Government declared the long-running war to be over.

Elsewhere in Sierra Leone, new Nigerian troops began arriving at Makeni, the former headquarters of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF). They will replace another Nigerian battalion, which was the first UNAMSIL peacekeeping contingent to deploy in the town since the Abudja Ceasefire Agreement of November 2000.