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Nige
ria has decided to send as early as next week two battalions of
troops to Liberia, a move that would convince President George W
Bush to send US troops and logistics support to the West African
state, a UN official said yesterday.
Olara Otunnu, the UN special envoy for children in was situations,
said defence ministers of the Economic Community of West African
States (Ecowas) concluded a meeting in Dakar on Wednesday at which
Nigeria agreed to send two army battalions with a total of up to 1
400 troops.
Otunnu said a US military assessment team was present at the Dakar
meeting to discuss possible US participation in the peace force in
Liberia. Mali, Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Morocco and possibly
Ethiopia have also agreed to send troops. But Otunnu said, unlike
Nigeria, armies in those countries are not well financed and do not
have logistics to deploy troops to Liberia.
"They are waiting for the international community to provide
support and have particularly made a request to the US to come and
provide that support," Otunnu said, adding that the total Ecowas
force to Liberia could be about 5 000 troops.
"The elements required by the US are now clear, and following the
conversation in Dakar, I hope that the US can now make the
definitive announcement very, very soon about its participation,
contribution and the timeframe for that," said Otunnu, who recently
visited Monrovia and other West African capitals.
He said the situation in Monrovia was "horrendous" following fierce
fighting between government and rebel troops in the past days.
President Charles Taylor's government said more than 600 people
have died in Monrovia in fighting since last Friday.
Otunnu said the rebels carried out a "massive" mobilisation of
children and women into the war, with one of 10 children in Liberia
now engaged in the fighting.
He said the UN had evacuated its staff from Monrovia as the
fighting threatened the peace process in neighbouring Guinea and
Sierra Leone.
At the Dakar meeting, Otunnu said Ecowas has agreed for the first
time to include in its peacekeeping operation "child protection
advisers", whose responsibility is to find ways to assist or
prevent children from being forced into fighting role.
He said those advisers will be selected among UN agencies like the
UN Children's Fund (Unicef). – Sapa-DPA.
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