PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT

Olara Otunnu, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, this morning proposed a 15-point agenda for action to help the war-affected children of Sierra Leone.

Addressing correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing, Mr. Otunnu, who had just returned from a visit to Sierra Leone and Guinea, appealed to Sierra Leonean political leaders to demonstrate their commitment to peace by taking “bold and concrete measures” to implement the Lomé Peace Accord, which had brought the Sierra Leone conflict to an end. “This is ultimately the best way to guarantee the protection of children in Sierra Leone”, he said.

He also called for the early return of the leaders of the groups which had fought against the Government -- Foday Sankoh of the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone (RUF/SL) and Johnny Paul Koromah, of the Armed Forces Revolutioary Council (AFRC) and the launching of the programme for disarming combatants. Mr. Otunnu urged the leadership of the two groups “to level with the children of Sierra Leone and acknowledge fully their role in the horrific atrocities committed during the war, most of them directed against children and women”.

Mr. Otunnu said he had been deeply shocked by the magnitude of the suffering visited upon the children. He said many had been maimed, including the brutal cutting of their limbs. Many had also been abducted in Freetown, including more than 4,000 last January. About 3,000 were still behind rebel lines. He estimated that 60 per cent of the abducted children were young girls, most of who had been sexually abused.

Of the three million Sierra Leoneans who had been displaced by the war, both within and outside the country, well over 60 per cent were children. He also estimated that up to 10,000 child soldiers were among the three major groups, which were involved in the conflict. The worst affected of the victims were clearly those limbs had been cut off. He said a “whole new community of persons had emerged within the Sierra Leonean society” --– those without limbs. Others were the young girls who had been subjected to sexual abuse, those who remained in abduction, and the child soldiers.

Mr. Otunnu said the most important message by the people of Sierra Leone was about ensuring that there was no resumption of the

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war. He said the early return to the country of the leaders of the groups which fought against the government and the launching of a systematic collection of arms would go a long way to give confidence to the peace process.

Based on what he had seen on his two trips to the country in the past year, Mr. Otunnu said it was his clear view that apart from the imperative of re-establishing security and peace in Sierra Leone, the most important single challenge facing Sierra Leonean society today was what had been described as the “crisis of the children”. It was in response to that, that he had made his proposals for action to help Sierra Leonean children. It included a neighbourhood initiative covering Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, which would deal with such issues as the flow of small arms, the movements of refugees and cross- border recruitment of child soldiers.

Mr. Otunnu said he was happy that the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) had become the first mission whose mandate had an explicit reference to children’s welfare, and which had a senior official to ensure implementation of that aspect of the mandate. Following talks he had had with RUF/SL leaders, discussions were underway between UNOMSIL, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the RUF/SL leadership for a humanitarian team to visit RUF/SL zones very soon. A joint task force had been established to ensure that the needs of children in the demobilization exercise were fully respected. The RUF/SL leadership had joined in making commitments not to recruit children as soldiers. Mr. Otunnu said measures should be taken to ensure that the commitments were put into practice.

Mr.Otunnu also addressed a particular appeal to the international community not to let down the children of Sierra Leone by again adopting a ‘wait-and-see attitude’. The Lomé Peace Accord was a fragile peace that was holding up, but required a lot of local and international support for its implementation and consolidation.

Replying to questions, Mr. Otunnu said his proposed agenda for action was specially designed for the post-conflict phase, “the very extraordinary circumstances” Sierra Leoneans found themselves, and the period in which priorities and policies were being set, and resources were being allocated. He wanted to be sure that the interests of children were protected during that period. That was why the agenda was needed, as well as the establishment of various institutions –- not routine ones. His proposed commission for children was very important to ensure internal and external response to the problems of the children, he added.

He told a questioner that his office worked closely in the field with all the operational agencies, particularly UNICEF, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the

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World Health Organization (WHO). He said his proposed agenda for action came out of discussions he had had with the various agencies, with non- governmental organizations and with civil societies in Sierra Leone, as well as with the Government there.

He had been impressed, he told a correspondent, about the commitment of the leaders of all the parties in Sierra Leone to the Lomé Peace Accords. He noted that peace in Sierra Leone was fragile and that “the window of opportunity” for its maintenance was narrow.

He told a questioner that he was also concerned about the plight of the children of East Timor, and that he had been having conversations with Security Council members on what initiatives could be undertaken on behalf of those children. He said concerns for children who were being abused and brutalized should be universal. Ensuring their welfare should be consistent and universal -– from Kosovo to East Timor and Sierra Leone.

Asked to provide a time-frame for the implementation of his initiative, he said some of the proposals were already under way, such as the demobilization of child combatants. He had been assured by the President of Sierra Leone that he would move expeditiously to have the national commission for children established. There was need for expertise on the ground. In terms of western response to trauma, he said there were only two psychiatrists in the country.

Asked to comment on Nigeria’s commitment to Sierra Leone, Mr. Otunnu said that in his discussions with the leadership of the Economic Community of West African States' Monitoring Observer Group (ECOMOG), and also with President Kabbah, it had become clear to him that Nigeria was “deeply committed to ECOMOG”, and that there were discussions underway to work out modalities of cooperation with the United Nations”.

Statistical information on the situation in Sierra Leone provided at the press briefing showed that some 2.6 million people were in the rebel-controlled areas and still remained inaccessible due to security concerns. An estimated 2.5 million people were internally displaced, out of which over 60 per cent (in some areas 70 per cent) were children. More than 500,000 Sierra Leoneans were refugees in neighbouring countries, mostly in Guinea. A significant number of those who had fled the war had not registered as refugees.

There were more than 3,000 street children, mostly in Freetown. A UNICEF survey showed that Sierra Leone was considered the second most dangerous country (after Angola) in which to be a child. The eight-year war had contributed significantly to that.

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