OWN CORRESPONDENT, Freetown | Thursday 8.45pm.
SIERRA Leonen President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and rebel leader Foday Sankoh have agreed to a ceasefire and further negotiations, Kabbah announced on Thursday, while fighting still raged in the capital Freetown. Kabbah announced at Freetown’s Lungi international airport that he and Sankoh agreed on Wednesday to a seven-day ceasefire. Sankoh, who began a rebel insurgency in 1991, had asked for a pardon, Kabbah said. The head of state showed journalists a cassette tape which he said bore a message from Sankoh to his men of the Revolutionary United Frontordering them to adhere to “an immediate ceasefire to save innocent lives”. “There needs to be peace and security. We must create a climate for peace and I am ready to ensure this with sincerity,” the rebel leader allegedly told Kabbah. Earlier on Thursday Nigerian aircraft joined the battle for the centre of Sierra Leone’s capital late, while mortar blasts resounded from areas where rebels took up positions in the morning, witnesses said. Residents also reported Alpha bomber jets and helicopters flown by Ecomog, the Nigerian-led intervention force defending the Sierra Leonian government, made non-stop sorties in and out of the international Lungi airport. –AFP