What happened to the UN peacekeeping force?
The UN sent the Unamsil peacekeeping force to Sierra Leone at the beginning of 2000 to oversee the implementation of the 1999 Lome peace accord. The force was initially bolstered by Nigerian troops, who were there as a follow-up to Ecomog, the West African peace-keeping mission that restored President Kabbah to power in 1998. But their withdrawal in early May exposed the weaknesses of the UN force, which was under-resourced and comprised troops, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, with little experience of working together or of such operations. British military support for the peacekeepers and the Sierra Leone government army helped to stabilise the situation, crucially securing Lungi airport outside Freetown to allow the UN to bring in more troops. Unamsil is now the biggest UN peacekeeping force in operation, numbering some 13,000. With British troops providing security in the capital, the Sierra Leone army and allied militia groups were able to contain t
