A west African summit agreed yesterday to send troops to Sierra Leone and to send the rebel leader, Mr Foday Sankoh, to a foreign country, a spokeswoman for the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States said. "It has been agreed that 3,000 soldiers will be sent to Sierra Leone to work under the United Nations [command]," said Ms Adriane Diop, a spokeswoman for the bloc.
The summit in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, had also agreed that "Sankoh would be taken out of Sierra Leone to be kept in a safer place" while international efforts continued to put a 1999 peace accord back on track, she said.
Mr Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) signed a deal with the President, Mr Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, to end a devastating war the RUF started in 1991. However, the pact came close to collapse four weeks ago when rebels seized about 500 UN peacekeepers trying to disarm combatants under the agreement.
Another group of 223 Indian peacekeepers remain surrounded by rebels at the eastern towns of Kuiva and Kailahun, but have kept their weapons and uniforms and have not been abducted. With them are 11 observers earlier taken hostage.
In New York, the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, said he was "delighted" at the news that "virtually all of the detained peacekeepers in Sierra Leone have been freed".
Meanwhile, government forces said yesterday they had captured Lunsar, a strategic town on a major highway to rebel-held areas in the north and east. "Lunsar has been liberated. It happened today, early today. That is all the details I can give for now," an army spokesman, Maj John Milton, said.
Lunsar, about 105 km north-east of Freetown, is on the road to Makeni, where the latest crisis began at the start of May after clashes between RUF fighters and peacekeepers. Earlier, military sources had reported fierce fighting west of Lunsar near Rogberi junction, the front line in recent days between rebels and government forces.