S Leone pays war victims

By Lansana Fofana
BBC, Freetown, Sierra Leone

The Sierra Leone Government has started to pay benefits to relatives of soldiers who died in the country's 10-year civil war.

Mr Kabbah's government hopes the awards will end army complaints

Although the authorities are still trying to ascertain the exact figure of dead soldiers, about 1,500 relatives of those already verified, have been queuing up at the army headquarters in Freetown to receive their payment.

Lieutenant Colonel Dominic Sowa, the officer in charge of the payment exercise, told me that the government has set aside 4.2bn leones ($1,846,154) to compensate relatives of the fallen soldiers.

At the army headquarters in the west end of Freetown, I saw a dozen of people forming queues and gathering in small groups while waiting to receive their packages.

They were collecting benefits in respect of their relatives who were killed during the civil war while in active combat.

Not satisfied

"We are targeting a huge number of them but officially we have got about 1,553 registered that we are about to pay in this exercise," said Colonel Sowa.

"Officially it will last up to Tuesday but the payment is still open to those entitled even if they come after that."

RUF rebels waged a brutal campaign of amputation and rape

Even as they collected the payment most relatives of the dead soldiers expressed emotional feelings for their loved ones.

"My brother who was killed by the rebels during the fighting. That [money] will not satisfy me but I will try - try with it," Felix said.

"My brother my died on January 6th. He was killed by the [rebel] RUF," one woman told me.

"That [compensation] will not make me happy, but I just think that I have to collect because he worked for rich and he died for rich," she said.

Sad memories

The relatives of the fallen soldiers may have the sad memories to live with, probably for the rest of their life.

But to the authorities this is a positive move that will give confidence to serving army personnel, who now know that they will not die in vain while defending their country.

Serving army personnel have been complaining about their welfare needs for many years.

At least 30,000 people were killed and thousands mutilated in the Sierra Leone conflict, which ended with the help of the UK, the former colonial power, and a United Nations peacekeeping mission.