How I was saved from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)

TLDR: I was on holiday at the time the rebels attacked Mokanji. People in offices to the left and right of me were taken, so there’s a high probability that I would have been taken too.

Here’s a report from Sierra Leone News at the time (January 1995):

The British Foreign Office on Friday named the two British nationals captured by the RUF in a raid Sierra Rutile on Friday as Peter White, who is employed by Group Four, a British security firm, and Andrew Young, who works for Sierra Rutile.

Abducted from the nearby Sierra Leone Ore and Metal Company (SIEROMCO) mine on Wednesday were

• General Manager James Westwood and Ross Milne, both British nationals.
• Swiss nationals Walter von Rotz (my manager. My office was next to his) and Thomas Pluess
• German Rudi Bruns
• Seven Sierra Leoneans: chief medical officer Mohamed Barrie
• Chief chemist Abdul Rahman Abdullah
• Accountant Benson Williams
• Cashier Vivian Gorvie,
• Personnel superintendent Thomas Kamara
• Technical supervisor Mohamed Conteh,
• Mechanical supervisor Edmond Lamin.

An AI image depicting escape.

• Anecdote 1: My friend Dennis Turner had casually remarked in December 1994 that he was uneasy about all the new faces in Mokanji. He said that this was similar to what happened in Kono a few months earlier just before the rebels attacked and that we should move our valuables to Freetown as a precuationary measure. I don’t recall doing it.
• Anecdote 2: In March 1995, with my colleagues still in rebel captivity, I flew with Chief Hinga Norman from Hastings to Bo on a reconnaissance trip. I had never been so frightened in my life. Hinga Norman must have noticed this and walked over to me and said “Young man, we are going to win this war, we are going to win it”.
• Anecdote 3: I met with the Chief Chemist, Rahman Abdullah, shortly after he was released by the rebels. After exchanging pleasantries, he looked at me and said. “One good thing about this is that I am now slim. I’ve been trying to lose weight all my life and he smiled broadly”. :)

No idea why I decided to write this now but Wilfred is still fond of learning and Freetown.