The NEWS (Monrovia)
22 April 2008
Monrovia — A registrar at the Vahun Public School, Brimah Vanday who claimed to have witnessed a hullabaloo between fighters of the defunct National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and a contingent of Senegalese ECOMOG soldiers, which led to the gruesome killings of six Senegalese soldiers has recalled what transpired.
Taking the stand at the on-going TRC public hearing in Voinjama, Lofa County recently, Madam Vanday recollected that the six Senegalese ECOMOG Soldiers were arrested at the Vahun general market where they had gone to shop.
Vanday, a business woman at the time of the incident, said the peacekeepers went to the market to buy vegetables when an ex-NPFL rebel identified as Sylvester Stallion demanded that they be disarmed.
She noted that the ECOMOG soldier's refusal to disarm led to a serious confusion between the fighters and the Senegalese who were later overpowered and taken to the NPFL base.
Vanday recalled that the incident which disrupted normal business resulted into a day-long gun battle between the contingent of ECOMOG soldiers and the NPFL fighters in Vahun.
Although Madam Vanday did not say how the peacekeepers were slaughtered, but narrated that they were killed at the local airfield where the rebel used as a base.
Explaining further, the registrar said a jet plane bombarded Vahun on two occasions and killed several innocent people including women and children during the occupation of ULIMO fighters in the area.
She also narrated how a child soldier identified as Alfred Saweh was instructed by NPFL commander Saye Mehwaypea to kill an old lady in Vahun in 1991.
She noted that prior to being killed, the old lady was tortured by the fighters.
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