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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

SIERRA LEONE: Security Council slows down withdrawal of UN troops

ABIDJAN, 21 July 2003 (IRIN) - The UN Security Council has slowed down the withdrawal of UN peacekeeping troops from Sierra Leone in the light of the civil war raging in neighbouring Liberia, but still envisages that the last blue helmets will leave the West African country at the end of next year.

The modified plan was recommended by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and approved by the Security Council on Friday. It delays the commencement of the third phase of military drawdown from August to December, but maintains the target of complete withdrawal by December 2004.

The UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) was established to help the country return to elected government after 10 years of civil war and became the largest UN peacekeeping operation in the world, with over 17,000 troops at its height last year. Its strength has since been cut to 13,000.

UNAMSIL will now reduce its strength gradually to 11,500 men by the end of 2003 rather than the 10,500 originally envisaged.

That level will be maintained until June 2004, but the peacekeeping force is due to be run down quickly thereafter. According to the latest plan, its troop strength will fall to just 5,000 men by October 2004, all of them concentrated round the capital Freetown.

The rate of drawdown was slowed in the light of a recent escalation of the civil war in neighbouring Liberia, whose president Charles Taylor, backed rebel forces in Sierra Leone during Sierra Leone's own civil war from 1991 to 2001.

Annan noted in his report to the Council that much still needs to be done to strengthen the capacities of both the Sierra Leone police and army and to facilitate their effective presence in the areas being vacated by UNAMSIL.

"Neither the Sierra Leone police nor armed forces are expected to make such rapid progress as to have them assuming external and internal security responsibilities by mid-2004 without UNAMSIL support," the report said.

Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict

[ENDS]

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