Hull and Freetown: twin towns?

Freetown: a world away from its twin town of Hull

By Paul Danahar in Sierra Leone

When he visits Freetown on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott will find precious few similarities between the war-torn capital and its twin town, his home constituency of Hull.

They are both ports and they both have a large fishing community; but there the comparison ends.

The East Yorkshire city is quite literally a world away from the pitiless violence that plagues this West African state.

The only turf war fought in Hull over recent years was a campaign to scrap the county of Humberside.

Hull's fishing community is thriving, unlike Freetown's

But the boundary lines in Sierra Leone are changed at the point of a gun. Large areas of the country form a battleground between the Sierra Leone army and the rebel forces of the RUF.

Thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes; many of them are going hungry in makeshift refugee camps, awaiting evacuation by the UN to a safer place.

Mr Prescott is coming to congratulate the British forces on their mission in Freetown.

The troops have successfully secured the capital and shored up what appeared to be, just last month, a crumbling UN military presence.

But as Mr Prescott arrives, the British troops will be preparing to leave. A remaining 200 soldiers will stay on for six weeks.

They have the daunting task of trying to train a thousand recruits from one of the most undisciplined and mistrusted armies in the world.

When they and Mr Prescott finally do go home, this country's seemingly endless misery will probably disappear from the British headlines - but it'll still loom large for the people of Sierra Leone.