West Side Boys, Holding six soldiers hostage
Britain sent a detachment from the Parachute Regiment to West Africa today as efforts continued to free six British soldiers kidnapped by renegade militiamen in Sierra Leone. A British Defence Ministry spokesman, denying that military action was imminent to free the hostages, said that the 100 paratroopers were being sent to Dakar, Senegal, to position them in the region should they be needed.
It is reported that the rebel group, the West Side Boys, holding the six British soldiers hostage, have attacked and captured a highway village, extending their zone of influence. Meanwhile, relatives of the West Side Boys spent a second day with them at their base 30 miles from Freetown, trying to persuade them to free the six members of the Royal Irish Regiment and a Sierra Leonean soldier seized with them. The West Side Boys seized eleven British soldiers, who had been training a new Sierra Leone Army, eleven days ago. They freed five of the eleven last Wednesday.
