Abidjan - UN peacekeepers surrounded the home of Sierra Leone's former rebel leader, Foday Sankoh, yesterday to ensure that he remained available for consultations on hostage-taking and fighting which have disrupted the peace process, a UN spokesman told BBC radio.
The spokesman said that Mr Sankoh, whose Revolutionary United Front fighters have been accused of attacking and killing at least seven UN peacekeepers and holding up to 50 prisoners, was not under house arrest as such.
But the move represented a hardening of the UN stand towards the violence, which broke out on Tuesday with attacks on peacekeepers in the central towns of Makeni and Magburaka.