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afrol.com, 1 March - According to a new report from the reknown US group Human Rights Watch, "the Guinean military has killed and wounded dozens of Sierra Leonean civilians in indiscriminate attacks against rebel-held areas of northern Sierra Leone." The thourough report quoted several testemonies collected in Sierra Leone, documenting the assaults. According to the group, "the Guinean military was apparently attacking in the vicinity of Sierra Leonean rebel forces, which have been launching attacks across the border and causing massive refugee flows from camps inside Guinea back to Sierra Leone." Sierra Leoenan RUF terrorists and Liberian security forces have been launching attacks from Sierra Leone bases against Guinean territory since September 2000. These include attacks on refugee camps and on the regional centre Guéckédou. The attacks have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Guinean civilians, and massive displacement of tens of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees. Guinea is cooperating with the Sierra Leonean government in the fight against the RUF, thus the attacks on Sierra Leonean territory. Witnesses however told the human rights group that the helicopter gunship and artillery attacks had caused little damage to the RUF terrorists, but had killed at least 41 civilians, including 11 children, since September 2000. The attacks, which took place in the Kambia, Bombali and Koinadugu districts of the country, also caused serious destruction of property and resulted in the displacement of thousands of civilians. Commenting on the report released yesterday, Human Rights Watch director Peter Takirambudde said "instead of attacking the rebels, the Guinean military has attacked the victims of the rebels. Civilians have borne the brunt of ten years of civil war in Sierra Leone, and unfortunately, the Guinean government is now making things worse for them." Human Rights Watch has spoken with witnesses and victims from twelve attacks, all within areas under the control of RUF rebels/terrorists. These attacks, five by helicopter gunship and seven using artillery, took place in and around the towns of Rokupr, Yeliboya, Makasa, Kakuna, Sabuya, Mambolo, Rokel and Kamakwie.
A testemonie from Sorrie, a twenty-five-year-old student, experiencing the attack on Kamakwie, confirmed the presence of significant numbers of RUF rebels but said their headquarters was untouched and none of them were injured in the attack. He tells about the damages and injuries caused by the bombs: "The first one fell directly on a house in Section #2; it killed two women and wounded three more. The second one hit near the sacred bush - a place just behind town where we perform our rituals. I stood there while the others dragged l0 bodies out. They were all cut up and many had burned when the bush caught fire. Two more bombs lay unexploded near the Kamasury and Kamayasi streams. One rebel wanted to shoot at it but then another yelled at him and grabbed his gun away. The RUF HQ is in a two story building in area #3 which was about 150 meters away from where the closest bomb dropped." Hassan, a twenty-nine-year-old boat owner, described the November 30, 2000 helicopter gunship attack on the town of Rokupr, which left at least thirteen people dead and eleven wounded: "At around l0:00 am, three helicopters approached the town and spread out into different directions. Then one headed straight to the wharf where hundreds of travelers and traders were busy doing business. ... I heard three deafening booms and then it fired a big gun. After some minutes I came out from hiding and saw what'd happened. I saw four persons who died on the spot and wounded lying all over; some wailing, some just totally confused. On bomb hit a building under construction and a man who'd tried to hide there was blown to bits. There were some rebels mingling with the civilians but most weren't armed. I heard one rebel had been wounded in the attack. A boat left with the wounded but by the time they reached Lunghi, seven had already died." While many of the victims and witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch confirm the presence of RUF terrorists in the area around the time of the attacks, none of the attacks documented seem to have accurately targeted RUF bases or areas of concentration. Instead the gunship rockets and artillery shells slammed into neighborhoods, marketplaces, restaurants and boat wharfs. Witnesses and victims interviewed by Human Rights Watch could only confirm the death of one RUF rebel in the twelve attacks documented. The Geneva Conventions prohibit indiscriminate attacks, and require that armed forces take precautions to limit the danger of attacks to civilian populations. Specifically prohibited are attacks "by bombardment by any method or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town [or] village." Also prohibited are attacks that "may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, [and] damage to civilian objects, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated." Human Rights Watch says it has "called on the Guinean government to halt all indiscriminate attacks and to ensure that its forces respect international humanitarian law, and called on the Sierra Leonean government to demand that its civilians be protected." The Government of Sierra Leone has yet to condemn the attacks against its own citizens. The Guinean bombing comes in an area where the civilian population has suffered by an RUF occupation for years. The RUF terrorists reportedly have terrorised the civilians by forced recruitment of child soldiers, abduction, mass rape, forced labour and mutilations. This has also been repeatedly documented and criticised by Human Rights Watch.
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In the most recent incidents, on February 15, four civilians all from the same extended family were killed when an artillery shell crashed into the village of Sabuya, in Northern Kambia district. On the same day, artillery shells killed a three-year-old girl in Rokel village, also in Kambia district. The most serious attacks involved the use of helicopter gunships including the November 30, 2000 attack on the town of Rokupr, which killed thirteen civilians, and the January 26 attack against the town of Kamakwie which killed twelve.
