Freetown

Sierra Leone’s main opposition All People’s Congress swept aside the ruling party in this month’s landmark elections, winning a majority of seats in the new Parliament, officials said on Thursday. The APC won 59 of the 112 seats on offer in the August 11 vote, leaving the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party with just 43 seats, down from 83 in the previous assembly.

Sierra Leone’s ruling party presidential candidate Solomon Berewa said on Monday two main opposition candidates have formed an alliance to try to beat him in an anticipated second round. Main opposition candidate Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People’s Congress party is leading after the first round, with 44% of the vote.

Sierra Leone’s opposition All People’s Congress on Saturday kept its lead with more than 80% of the votes counted after last week’s elections, but fell short of absolute majority, an official tally showed. About 2,6-million people were eligible to choose a new president and a 112-seat Parliament.

Sierra Leone’s elections, the second vote since the West African country emerged from one of the most brutal wars in modern history, has sparked a new battle for the airwaves. Days after accusing the main opposition All People’s Congress of broadcasting post-election hate messages, the ruling party this week conducted a test transmission for its own station.

In Freetown’s rubbish-strewn slums, where sick children defecate in sewers by pot-holed streets, music blaring from shops and taxis tells Sierra Leone’s youth that politicians have failed their war-ravaged country. The West African nation’s 1991 to 2002 civil war was infamous for drugged child soldiers who raped and mutilated thousands of civilians, but now young Sierra Leoneans hold in their hands the future of their country, one of the poorest on earth.

The United Nations resident representative in Sierra Leone on Tuesday warned that the war-scarred West African country cannot afford to fail to organise credible elections, ahead of weekend polls. Sierra Leoneans will vote on Saturday for the first time in five years, and only the second elections since the country emerged from a decade of war.

At least 50 people are dead and 148 others are missing after a coastal ferry capsized overnight in rough seas off northern Sierra Leone, a port official said on Friday. ”According to the report we received, 50 people perished, two were rescued while 148 others remain unaccounted for,” the official, who asked not to be named, said.

Sierra Leone’s United Nations-backed Special Court convicted two former leaders of a pro-government militia on Thursday for war crimes, but acquitted them of some of the most serious charges of crimes against humanity. The two were leaders of the Civil Defence Forces, which fought for President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah in a 1991 to 2002 civil war.

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is on trial for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone’s civil war, would, if convicted, serve his sentence in Britain under an agreement made by British authorities. Britain’s government signed the sentence-enforcement agreement this week with the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Sierra Leone’s special war-crimes court handed down its first verdicts on Wednesday, finding three leaders of a militia guilty of war crimes that include killing, raping and mutilating civilians. The verdicts stem from charges relating to Sierra Leone’s civil war.

Britain ”fully supports” United States efforts to toughen United Nations Security Council sanctions against Sudan because of the situation in Darfur, a British official said on Wednesday. ”We hope that all members of the Security Council will work with the US to create a resolution which effectively addresses the challenges in Darfur,” the Downing Street official said.

Sierra Leone has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. In developed countries, on average there are fewer than 10 maternal deaths for every 100 000 live births. In Sierra Leone, the rate is nearly 200 times higher. This statistic, from the United Nations children’s agency Unicef, is just one of several staggering indicators of the lethal nature of childbirth in one of the world’s poorest countries.

The World Bank will give -million to aid development in Sierra Leone and help the desperately poor post-war nation reform the way it is governed, the bank said on Monday. ”The grant will provide critical resources to support elements of the government’s poverty reduction strategy,” the bank said in the statement.

United Nations chief Kofi Annan vowed on Monday that the international community will do everything in its power to ensure the success of presidential elections due in Sierra Leone next year. ”We will spare no effort to ensure that it succeeds,” Annan said during a meeting with UN staff in Freetown.

The war crimes trial of the former president of Liberia Charles Taylor could start in The Hague in January next year, a court official in the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown said on Wednesday. Harpinder Athwal, a special assistant to the court’s prosecutor, said the prosecution had handed over 32 000 pages of evidence to Taylor’s defence team.

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor was flown from Freetown on Tuesday to The Netherlands where he will stand trial for war crimes allegedly committed during Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war, court and government officials told Agence France-Presse.

Former Liberian leader Charles Taylor could soon be moved to the Hague for trial now that Britain has agreed to jail the ex-warlord if he is found guilty of war crimes, a British diplomat said on Friday. ”It is up to the United Nations and the international community and the special court to work out details,” Britain’s deputy high commissioner in Freetown, David Dodd, said.

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor’s interim defence lawyer is in Sierra Leone to challenge attempts to move the warlord’s trial to The Hague, sources close to Taylor said on Tuesday. Karim Khan filed an urgent application to the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone to ask that no decision be made on the trial venue until the defence is allowed to comment on the issue.

The Special Court for war crimes in Sierra Leone said on Thursday it had assigned a lawyer free of charge for Liberia’s former warlord and president Charles Taylor, who faces trial for crimes against humanity. Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, a barrister with a British firm, has been appointed to represent Taylor for three months.