Freetown - Members of a group of fighters holding six British soldiers hostage in Sierra Leone have attacked and captured a highway village, extending their zone of influence, military sources said yesterday.
The sources said that the renegade former soldiers, who call themselves the "West Side Boys", had seized the village of Mgbini from pro-government militia on Saturday, killing three militiamen. Relatives of the West Side Boys, meanwhile, spent a second day with the hostage-takers at their Occra Hills base 50 km from Freetown, trying to persuade them to free the six British soldiers and a Sierra Leonean soldier seized with them.