MONDAY, 12.00NOON
SIERRA LEONE rebels have won back the airport from Nigerian troops, preventing an air strike against them. The Nigerians have dithered over their promised attack against Freetown, allowing the rebels to strengthen their position. The rebels claim to have captured two Nigerian officers who had landed with a cargo of machine gun shells and thousands of rounds of AK-47 ammunition.
FRIDAY, 4.00PM
A NIGERIAN general on Friday denied that Monday’s failed attack on focres of the Sierra Leone junta by Nigerian-led Ecomog peacekeeping forces was part of an OAU-mandated operation to oust the coup leaders.
General Victor Malu, who has been called back from Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown to Nigeria for consultations with military strongman General Sani Abacha, said the “real operation is yet to start”.
“We had some confrontation on Monday and it was not a planned attack to start [the] operation. We were fired upon and we had to return fire and in the course of it, we sustained some casualties,” he said of Ecomog’s rpouting by junta troops supported by Revolutionary United Front rebels. “The action … to get the rebels out of Sierra Leone has not started, that is the reason why I am here [in Nigeria],” said Malu.
Both troops and logistical support are at present being sent to Freetown from Nigeria, Liberia, Ghana and Guinea, according to reports which put the number of peacekeepers in Freetown at between 3 500 and 4 000, and confirming that the Freetown airport is firmly under the control of Ecomog troops.
A source at Ecomog headquarters in Monrovia, Liberia, said the deployment of the peacekeeping force into Sierra Leone is still continuing and troop strength on the ground in Freetown is now “very comfortable”.