UN observers taken hostage in Sierra Leone

Rebels in Sierra Leone have taken hostage a group of United Nations military observers, West African peacekeepers, reporters and aid workers. The hostages included five Britons and a number of Nigerian peacekeepers, who were accompanying the group.

The group had gone on Wednesday to the Okra Hills about 40 miles east of the capital, Freetown, where the rebels were due to hand over some 200 children abducted during the civil war in the West African country. An officer with the U.N. Observer Mission in Sierra Leone said that the children had not been released. Instead, the U.N.-led group was detained by the rebels.

A rebel spokesman told BBC radio that Revolutionary United Front rebel leader , who is in Togo, had ordered the hostages to be released and suggested this could take place overnight.