•HRES 559 IH
Whereas the AFRC/RUF continues to abduct children and
forcibly train them as combatants, in numbers estimated
by UNICEF to exceed 3,000 since March 1998;
Whereas the humanitarian consequences of this campaign
have been the flight of more than 250,000 refugees to
Guinea and Liberia in the last 6 months and the increase
of internally displaced Sierra Leoneans to over 250,000
in camps and towns in the north and east;
Whereas the governments of Guinea and Liberia are having
great difficulty caring for the huge number of refugees,
now totaling 600,000 in Guinea and Liberia, and emer-
gency appeals have been issued by the United Nations
High 
Commission 
for 
Refugees 
(UNHCR) 
for
$7,300,000 for emergency food, shelter, sanitation, medi-
cal, educational, psychological, and social services;
Whereas starvation and hunger-related deaths have begun in
the north with more than 500 people dying since August
1, 1998, a situation that will only get worse in the next
months;
Whereas the humanitarian community is unable, because of
continuing security concerns, to deliver food and medicine
to the vulnerable groups within the north and east of Si-
erra Leone;
Whereas the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) and its military peacekeeping arm called
ECOMOG are doing their best, but are still lacking in
the logistic support needed to either bring this AFRC/
RUF rebel war to a conclusion or force a negotiated set-
tlement;
•HRES 559 IH
Whereas arms and weapons continue to be supplied to the
AFRC/RUF in direct violation of a United Nations arms
embargo;
Whereas United Nations Under Secretary for Humanitarian
Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Sergio Viera
de Melo, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,
and Refugees International, following May through June
1998 visits to Sierra Leone, have condemned, in the
strongest terms, the terrible human rights violations done
by the AFRC/RUF rebels to civilians; and
Whereas the Special Representative of the United Nations
Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict,
Olara Otunu, following a May 1998 visit to Sierra Leone,
called upon the United Nations to make Sierra Leone one
of the pilot projects in the rehabilitation of child combat-
ants: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) urges the President and the Secretary of
State to give high priority to solving the conflict in
Sierra Leone and to bring stability to West Africa
in general;
(2) urges the State Department and the United
Nations to give the needed logistical support to
ECOMOG and the Government of Sierra Leone to
bring this conflict to a rapid conclusion;
(3) condemns the use of children as combatants
in the conflict in Sierra Leone;
•HRES 559 IH
(4) urges the United Nations to establish a se-
cure humanitarian corridor to strategic areas in the
north and east of Sierra Leone for the safe delivery
of food and medicines by the Government of Sierra
Leone and humanitarian agencies already in the
country mandated to deliver this aid;
(5) urges the President and the Secretary of
State to strictly enforce the United Nations arms
embargo on the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council
and Revolutionary United Front (AFRC/RUF) rebel
forces;
(6) urges the President and the Secretary of
State to work with the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS) nations to ensure
there are sufficient African forces and arms provided
to its military peacekeeping arm ECOMOG;
(7) urges the President and the Secretary of
State to support the United Nations High Commis-
sion for Refugees (UNHCR) appeal for aid to the
Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea and Liberia;
(8) urges the President and the State Depart-
ment to support the United Nations agencies and
nongovernmental organizations working in Sierra
Leone to bring humanitarian relief and peace to the
country;
•HRES 559 IH
(9) urges the President and the State Depart-
ment to support the Government of Sierra Leone in
its demobilization, disarmament, and reconstruction
plan for the country as peace becomes a reality; and
(10) encourages and supports, Olara Otunu,
United Nations Special Representative of the Sec-
retary General for Children and Armed Conflict, to
continue in his efforts to work in Sierra Leone in
the establishment of programs designed to rehabili-
tate child combatants.
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