Britain has dispatched five warships and hundreds of paratroopers to West Africa to evacuate its citizens from the fighting in Sierra Leone.
But there was no indication a rapid-reaction force was being assembled to rescue the 500 United Nations peacekeepers whom authorities believe are being held by rebels.
“They’re certainly not going there to get involved with fighting the rebels or anything like that,” a Defense Ministry spokesman said of the British deployment.
There are about 500 Britons in the West African nation. The United States has already sent in helicopters to evacuate Americans.
Meanwhile, the fighting threatened to doom the 1999 British-brokered peace accord in Sierra Leone.
Leaders of the rebel Revolutionary United Front and U.N. officials flew together by helicopter to survey the area where their forces had clashed just one day earlier.
The rebels had advanced through Sierra Leone’s interior but then “melted away” into the jungle after their leader, Foday Sankoh, ordered them to halt after an appeal from the U.N.
Brig. Gen. Mohammed Garba, a U.N. deputy force commander, said yesterday “there is no cause for alarm” among the general public.
A top U.N. official, undersecretary general for peacekeeping Bernard Miyet, is expected to arrive in the capital city of Freetown tomorrow.
“He is to boost the morale of troops in the wake of the devastating events of the last few days, and to help the political process under way to try to resolve the matter of the hostages peacefully,” U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
The U.N. has a force of 8,700 troops in Sierra Leone to supervise the peace pact that ended an eight-year civil war.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook suggested the latest clashes were sparked by the peacekeepers’ moves toward Sierra Leone’s most valuable territory, long controlled by the rebels.
“It does appear that the issue that has triggered them to mount this further rebellion has been the attempt by the U.N. to enter the diamond-producing area,” he said.