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U.N. Enters Rebel-Held Diamond Town in Sierra Leone
U.N. troops entered a rebel-held diamond-mining town for the first time in Sierra Leone's war, patrolling the rebel stronghold without resistance, the U.N. force commander announced Monday.
The deployment asserted U.N. peacekeepers' right of access to one of rebel's key prizes in the 10-year-old conflict: the Tongofield diamond field, one of the West African nation's richest.
U.N. peacekeepers carried out the patrol in the town of Tongofield Saturday but revealed it only Monday.
Force commander Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande, a Kenyan, told The Associated Press that 100 Zambian peacekeepers made ``a strong and long-range patrol'' to the eastern diamond town.
The U.N. troops were ``well-received'' by fighters of the Revolutionary United Front and local people, Opande said.
It was the most assertive move yet of weeks back on the move for U.N. peacekeepers in Sierra Leone, deploying cautiously in the one-third to one-half of the country under control of the brutal rebel force.
Rebels have met the new deployments into their territory peacefully — in sharp contrast to last May, when rebels broke off a peace accord and took 500 advancing U.N. peacekeepers hostage.
Peacekeepers now are deploying town by town, moving slowly and in force.
The U.N. Security Council voted this month to boost the peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone from 12,000 to 17,500. The deployment already is the world's largest.
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