After the Battle | ECOMOG Versus Sierra Leonean Rebels | Brig. Maxwell Khobe Speaks | January 1999

January 1999.

Footage of Freetown, the capital of war-ravaged Sierra Leone after fighting ceased between ECOMOG, the Nigerian-led peace-keeping force of West Africa, and rebels.

The ceasefire was grudgingly accepted by rebel commander Sam Bockarie, the commander of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), whose militia had been forced to retreat from Freetown after a surge by the 15,000-strong ECOMOG force which regained Freetown on Thursday, January 14th 1999 after a rebel attack on January 6th. The ECOMOG troops were cheered by residents when they regained Freetown city centre.

However, Bockarie announced that the ceasefire would not endure for more than a week if ECOMOG and President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah did not release Corporal Foday Sankoh, the RUF's leader. Sankoh had been sentenced to death for treason the previous October.

Reuters Text from Jauary 1999 (Excerpt):

"Grim scenes greeted Reuters journalists when they toured the centre with ECOMOG on Friday.

Vultures picked at dozens of bodies lying in the pot-holed streets. Hungry and thirsty residents emerged from hiding after a week trapped indoors.

"It's just horrible, there are rotting bodies in the streets, corpses everywhere," said Blanche, an office secretary before the mayhem broke out.

A Roman Catholic news service in Rome said Freetown's main Connaught Hospital was "overflowing with dead" and that there was a clear risk of epidemic.

The rebels took hostages with them as they retreated eastwards.One prisoner was Freetown's Roman Catholic archbishop.

"I've been through these experiences before, but this one was very heavy," said Willem Boere, a 48-year-old battlefield surgeon from the Netherlands.

He and four other expatriates with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were ordered out of Freetown on Wednesday by ECOMOG, despite being the only foreign medical aid workers left in the city.

The ICRC was silent about the reasons for the expulsion but ECOMOG sources said the Red Cross team were listening into the force's radio communications.

The rebel retreat left Freetown landmarks like the abandoned presidency honeycombed with bullet-holes.The Nigerian embassy and U.N. Headquarters were razed."

Source: Reuters News Archive.