/ 14 May 2000

Freetown ‘secure’ despite rebel fightback

KURT SCHORK, Makolo | Sunday 3.30pm.

BRITISH forces in Sierre Leone say the capital Freetown has been secured, despite rebels retaking the strategic town of Masiaka on the main highway to the capital on Sunday.

“We have withdrawn and we have taken up defensive positions,” a major in the Sierre Leone Army said.

Revolutionary United Front fighters loyal to veteran rebel leader Foday Sankoh took up arms at the start of May following a dispute with UN peacekeepers in the central town of Makeni over disarmament under the 1999 peace treaty.

Their action caught the ill-prepared UN peacekeeping force off-guard. RUF fighters took hostage or pinned down several hundred peacekeepers in the interior as peacekeepers struggled to contain a rebel advance on Freetown.

Sunday’s RUF counter-attack took loyalist forces by surprise. As the UN had regrouped with the active support of British evacuation troops, loyalist forces have pushed out along the main road from the capital. They only regained control of Masiaka on Saturday.