Global Policy Forum

By Jordan Kanu

As peace is slowly returning to the rural communities and settlements in the northern region, the United Nations Peace keeping troops in Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL are bringing new ideas and initiatives, which although lie outside their direct and normal UN mandate, are nevertheless contributing significantly to the overall development of the country. It is expected that these efforts would produce excellent results that impact positively towards the consolidation of peace and security in the country.

The most prominent country in this regard is Bangladesh. It's troops have taken the lead in several rural development initiatives, and appear to have easily replaced the government and/or NGOs in areas such as health, education, humanitarian relief and roads rehabilitation activities in the northern region. The Ban-Med, which is the Bangladeshi contingent's medical wing inside the UNAMSIL family, is meant to serve the Bangladeshi peacekeeping forces only. Funded entirely by their government, the group however started treating local civilians, especially during the war when the entire medical facility in the area collapsed due to rebel incursions. Seeing the misery of the population and the high level of local medical requirements, Brig. Gen. Alie Hassan, the first Bangladeshi Sector Commander, instructed his military chief medical officer, Col. Sahid to expand Ban-Med services to cover the civilians, with special emphasis on the needs of women and children.

The new Sector Commander, Brig. Gen. Igbal Karim has also approved the continuation of the programme, and has even extended it outside Magburaka, to include all the five districts in the north, making it by far the largest single medical programme in the north. All treatments and drugs are free and today people are coming to Magburaka for free treatment from as far away as Kabala, Kambia, Kamakwei and even Kono.

To implement such a vast programme, mobile clinic facilities have been put in place with the aim of bringing the medical services direct to the chiefdom headquarter towns/villages. The mobile team travels with its ambulances and drugs, and consist of 26 specialist doctors, 24 dispensers and 14 nurses. Treatment covers all major diseases. The people come in thousands to their chiefdom headquarter towns to meet the team and all those who manage to reach the centers get treatment before the team returns to Magburaka. For the most serious cases, and those that need operation or X-ray, there is a free transport to bring them to Magburaka for special treatment.

Similar successes are taking place in the educational sector in the Tonkolili district. Through the newly created Bangladesh/Sierra Leone Friendship Society, the Civil Affairs Unit of the Bangladeshi contingent in Magburaka has just completed the construction of a new secondary school near Mototoka, to help the many returnees and other children of vulnerable groups in the district to start secondary education this year.

This is the first project of the newly formed friendship organisation, which aims, among other things, to create a strong cultural and trade links between the two countries. The school took only three months to construct and is now ready with teachers and teaching materials to start full-scale educational programmes in October this year. The construction costs US$12,000 (twelve thousand dollars), and in addition there is a long list of young people who will benefit from scholarships to be sponsored by the society.

On the road construction/rehabilitation programme, the young engineers of the Bangladeshi contingent have surprised everybody by the display of talents in making possible what many was considered practically impossible. They have constructed/rehabilitated the Mile91-Magburaka road, a major road linking Kono and Freetown, via Mile 91, reducing the distance by over 30 miles. The young Bangladeshi military engineers have proved us all wrong, by displaying their engineering talents and within a short period restoring the originality of the road.

With these activities, the Bangladeshi battalion has succeeded in improving the quality of life of the people in the north more effectively than any other private agency and/or NGO in the past decade or two.

The Bangladeshi troops, which are commonly known in the north as the 'humanitarian troops', are now busy helping civilians to fight poverty, diseases and hunger; and are helping in roads reconstruction to ease the hardship and long neglect of the people in the north. They believe that unless the socio-economic problems of the various communities are attended to, the consolidation of peace will be impossible.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.