Aiding child victims in Sierra Leone

UN Special Representative appeals for international support

By Ahunna Eziakonwa

The road to national recovery in Sierra Leone may well lie in providing rehabilitation to children and women affected by war, says Mr. Olara Otunnu, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict. At a 2 June press conference in New York, Mr. Otunnu challenged the international community to respond more vigorously to the needs of Sierra Leonean children.

Mr. Olara Otunnu with displaced children in Daru, Sierra Leone, in May.
Just back from a four-day visit to Sierra Leone, two months after the democratically elected President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was restored to power by the Economic Community of West African States Cease-fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), following a 1997 coup, the Special Representative described "one of the most harrowing sights" he had ever seen -- hundreds of unaccompanied children in desperate need of food, clothing and shelter. He recounted with concern, "the emergence of a new community" of people whose limbs had been severed by rebels of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and their Revolutionary United Front (RUF) allies. Approximately 300 such victims were treated in May at Connaught Hospital in Freetown, perhaps only a small proportion of those recently maimed. "I will never forget the words of a young boy of about five years who told me that after severing his hands, the RUF soldiers told him: 'Go tell President Kabbah that we are still here'," Mr. Otunnu said.

ECOMOG forces, now in charge of the country's security, have taken control of about 80 per cent of the territory and are trying to secure the remaining areas.

The Kabbah government faces a tough situation. The UN Development Programme 1997 Human Development Report ranks Sierra Leone as the second least developed nation in the world, after Niger. Conflict since 1991 has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced several hundred thousand.

In May, the UN called for payment of funds pledged to the voluntary Trust Fund which it launched in April 1997, but for which only $1.9 mn of the $11 mn pledged had been received. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ms. Sadako Ogata, also issued an urgent appeal for $7.3 mn to help new refugee arrivals in Guinea and Liberia until the end of the year. Sierra Leonean refugees in Liberia and Guinea now exceed 500,000, in addition to 50,000 internally displaced seeking shelter in camps and towns in northern Sierra Leone. Faced with a deteriorating humanitarian situation, the UN appealed for another $20.2 mn at the end of June.

In a report to the Security Council on Sierra Leone that same month, Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced plans for a high-level donors' conference to mobilize assistance. Mr. Annan also recommended deploying a limited number of unarmed military observers "to lend impetus to a fragile but vital peace process," and help encourage the rebels to surrender. Accordingly, the Security Council on 13 July established the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone.

Mr. Otunnu remains optimistic. He told Africa Recovery that despite continuing instability in parts of the country, "there is still a large space -- political as well as geographic -- for serious engagement in terms of programmes for rehabilitation and reconstruction."

Sierra Leone has the appropriate conditions, he added, for decisive action by the international community: a restored democratic government enjoying wide legitimacy; a demonstrated will by the government and civil society to address "the crisis of youth"; and a regional peacekeeping force which has maintained a rapport with the civilian population and is therefore able to respond effectively to the still precarious security situation.

During his visit, Mr. Otunnu secured commitments for the rehabilitation and protection of children. The civil defence forces (CDF), known as the "Kamajors," agreed to stop recruiting children under the age of 18. The government, ECOMOG and CDF also agreed to establish a joint task force to oversee the demobilization and reintegration of ex-child soldiers. With at least 3,000 children in the rebel army, Mr. Otunnu said children still need to be protected from further involvement in conflict.

Impressed by the Sierra Leoneans' display of confidence, Mr. Otunnu said "we must help them to consolidate that sense of self-confidence." But he also warned that the country's restored democracy and its prospects for stability could be jeopardized by a wait-and-see attitude on the part of the international community.

 Hope for abducted children of northern Uganda

Hundreds of children from northern Uganda are believed to have been abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and other Ugandan rebel groups and taken to the border region between Uganda and Sudan. To gain first-hand information of their plight, as well as of the impact on children of the war in southern Sudan, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict Olara Otunnu visited Sudan on 14-17 June.

During the visit, the Sudanese government facilitated the release of three such children, and Mr. Otunnu expressed appreciation for its cooperation. During talks with Sudanese authorities, Mr. Otunnu also secured their commitment to stop the recruitment of children below the age of 18 and to do everything possible to avoid the deployment of landmines in southern Sudan.

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