A visiting team of Argentinean forensic experts said on Wednesday they would identify mass graves from Sierra Leone’s brutal decade-long civil war and open them to determine how the victims died.
The team has the “ability to identify mass graves as well as victims and the manner in which they were killed,” chief forensic expert Patricia Banardi said.
“We are going to visit all possible sites to find the corpses and ascertain how victims died,” she said.
Rodolfo Mattarolo, chief human rights observer of the UN mission in Sierra Leone, said that the team would “help uncover the facts” and render
“meaningful” a recently set up Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
The commission whose members were appointed in May will look into war crimes.
Unlike its South African counterpart, the Sierra Leonean body will not have the power of amnesty and will not collaborate with a UN-sponsored special court.
Some 200 000 people were killed, thousands of other civilians had their limbs hacked off during Sierra Leone’s brutal war, which was formally declared over only in January. – AFP