UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.N. peacekeepers preparing to pull out of Sierra Leone say they have completed the mission they began six years ago but warn the country still has a long way to go before it recovers from one of Africa's most brutal wars.
Along with crushing poverty and illiteracy, one of the most daunting challenges will be finding jobs for the huge population of unemployed youths, many of them former child soldiers, said Daudi Mwakawago, the top U.N. representative in Sierra Leone. "We have kept the peace," he told a news conference Monday. "The country is fragile. We can't continue with the peacekeeping. We need peacebuilding."
Sierra Leone has a population of 5 million, about 2 million of whom are unemployed youths, Mwakawago said, describing the situation as "very explosive." "And some of those youths were involved in the civil war. So they have one trade they know - and we don't want them to go into that trade."
Most people - 70 percent - live on less than $1 a day and are illiterate, he said. Roads are so bad it's nearly impossible to move crops agricultural products from the richest farming areas in the corners of the country to the capital, Freetown.
Still, Sierra Leone has come a long way from the 1991-2002 civil war. Peace took hold only in early 2002 with the intervention of U.N. and British forces. Since then, the government has extended its authority throughout the country, disarming 70,000 combatants who are now being reintegrated into society. Nearly 9,500 police have been trained and equipped, and the army has been reduced, from 14,500 to 12,000 with further cuts to come, Mwakawago said.
| Occasionally the UN does something useful. In this case the Brits stiffened the necessary spines. |
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