Anti-terror experts will use negotiation rather force in their attempts to free five British soldiers among a team of UN observers seized by armed rebels in Sierra Leone, the Foreign Office minister Mr Peter Hain stressed today. yesterday.
The team, due to arrive in the troubled African state later today, is reported to include SAS troops as well as senior Whitehall officials, police officers and other defence staff. But Mr Hain told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "This is not some gung-ho mission - this is a team of negotiating experts who wish to secure the safe and peaceful return of peacekeepers who themselves found they had become hostages."
"It is an expert team and you wouldn't expect me to comment on its exact characteristics in what is a situation where the rebels themselves have radio contact, it appears, and I don't wish them to be alerted as to exactly what we're doing."
With help from officials in Sierra Leone the team was expected to make contact with the rebels as quickly as possible after arriving yesterday afternoon.
Eight years of civil war in Sierra Leone ended on July 7th when the government and the rebel Revolutionary United Front signed a peace agreement.
The captured Britons were among more than a dozen UN observers seized along with a group of regional peacekeeping troops by soldiers from the former military junta on Wednesday. Ironically they were snatched seized at a meeting arranged to free women and children.
Four journalists covering the handover were also taken when the rebel soldiers turned their weapons on the escort group.
Two hostages - a journalist and a human rights lawyer working for the UN - have since been released by the rebels. One of the freed men, Mr Christo Johnson, who works for Reuters news agency, wrote of his capture saying that they had feared for their lives.
"The sudden appearance of the heavily armed rebels as we sat in a schoolhouse in the village of Magbni on Wednesday chatting to some of their officers caught us totally unawares.
"Before the armed rebels appeared the officers had even asked the local Roman Catholic bishop of Makeni, Giorgio Biguzzi, to lead us in prayer. Our escort of 25 armed Nigerian peacekeepers were quickly overwhelmed and disarmed by the rebels, veterans of a conflict marked by terrible atrocities and mutilations.
"After a trek through the bush and by canoe to their local headquarters, the rebel commander told the five British soldiers with the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMIL) that Britain, the former colonial power, was to blame for the conflict. But he told us all that we had nothing to fear."
On Thursday afternoon the rebels announced that that Haitian lawyer Peter Marvel and Mr Johnson would be released.
Mr Johnson has reported that all the hostages were well. They were being held in a thatched building in the village of Magbini, about 55 miles east of Freetown. "We were well treated, although at first we were held at gunpoint," he is reported to have said.