January 7, 2000
Jerome Hule, PANA Correspondent
NEW YORK, UN (PANA) - More than 4,000 of the 6,000 international peacekeepers approved by the United Nations for Sierra Leone have been deployed to various strategic locations in the country, the world body has said.
Information provided Thursday by the UN Mission in Sierra Leone said peacekeeping troops have been deployed to such locations as Makeni, Daru, Port Loko and Lungi, Lunsar, Magburaka, Bo and Kanema.
The troops include 800 from Kenya, 1,560 from Nigeria, 1,200 from India and 780 from Ghana.
The mission said the deployment of Kenyan troops in Makeni on Wednesday marked the first step toward setting up a disarmament and demobilisation camp in the area.
On Tuesday, the mission reported initial opposition to the deployment of the troops in Makeni by Revolutionary United Front rebels but the problem was eventually sorted out later in the day.
Local residents, however, were said to have welcomed the soldiers with enthusiasm.
The mission said the "peacekeepers will establish a security grid to guarantee the safety and freedom of movement of UN personnel.
"This is part of a co-ordinated long term operation to open up the roads of Sierra Leone so that everyone may be able to move freely," it added.
The mission was authorised by the UN Security Council in October to help in the implementation of the peace process in Sierra Leone.
While a troop strength of 6,000 was initially authorised, the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, recently recommended the expansion of the mission to 10,000.
This, he explained, was because of the decision by Nigeria to withdraw its troops from the West African Peace Monitoring Group, ECOMOG, which was expected to be in Sierra Leone alongside UN troops.
Nigeria, which had the largest troop contingent in ECOMOG, has maintained that it would not allow a situation where it would have troops in Sierra Leone operating under separate commands and conditions.