OWN CORRESPONDENT, Rome | Friday 12.30pm.
THE Sierra Leone capital was calm on Thursday night, according to the Catholic Misna news agency, which reported a halt in fighting in Freetown’s eastern Kissy district.
“The night seems to be calm,” a Sierra Leonean priest in the city told the Rome-based agency late last night. “On the Lungi peninsula, which faces the capital, I can see several lights, perhaps a sign that calm has returned,” he said.
Rebels invaded Freetown last week, battling troops of the Nigerian-led regional intervention force, Ecomog, and plunging the city into chaos.
By Thursday expatriate staff working for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Sierra Leone had left the country. They were the only expatriate aid workers who had remained since fighting began in the capital nine days ago.
Other sources said the Kissy district, scene of fighting on Thursday, was largely silent and that only the occasional gunshot could be heard.
Rebels of the Revolutionary United Front on Thursday announced they would observe a temporary ceasefire from Monday but insisted the truce would end if their detained leader Foday Sankoh was not freed within a week. The European Union has expressed its continued support for the efforts of the of Ecomog to restore order in Sierra Leone and offered to provide material assistance to the victims of the civil war. — AFP