Nearly 900 Evacuated From Sierra Leone

WASHINGTON —  U.S. Marines evacuated almost 900 foreigners, including more than 300 Americans, from violence-racked Sierra Leone on Friday, rebuffing an attempt by leaders of a military coup to seal the nation’s borders.

The evacuees were ferried by helicopter to a U.S. amphibious assault ship anchored near the West African nation.

At the same time, the State Department reversed an earlier decision and ordered the U.S. Embassy in Freetown, the capital, to shut down and embassy staffers to join the airlift out of the country.

The evacuations and embassy closure were warranted by an increasingly volatile situation in Sierra Leone, a State Department spokesman said.

On Sunday, mutinous soldiers seized power there, ousting elected President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. Rival military factions have been competing for control, and a Nigerian military force also was said to be considering action.

Backed by 203 combat-ready Marines on the ground, U.S. military helicopters ferried 889 foreigners, including 330 Americans, 20 miles from the grounds of a Freetown hotel to the Kearsarge, the Pentagon said.

The ship was expected to proceed to Conakry, Guinea, about 100 miles north of Freetown. Evacuees would then make any further travel arrangements on their own.

A Pentagon spokesman said the evacuation was virtually complete but that if other foreigners asked for help to leave the country they would be accommodated. The evacuees included the last four of 26 members of the U.N. refugee organization there, which closed down in the face of growing danger.

Britain evacuated about 400 foreigners earlier Friday, loading them on a jumbo jet for a flight to London.

Despite an order by the coup leaders to close off the country’s airspace and prohibit anyone from leaving, the evacuation went off without a hitch.

Lt. Col. Tom Greenwood, the Marine task force commander, said the helicopter lift “was no problem for us,” news agencies reported.

Africa experts speculated that the mutineers wanted to keep foreigners in the country as hostages to deter a Nigerian-led coalition of West African states from trying to restore Kabbah by military force.

Nigeria has 700 troops in Sierra Leone as part of a West African peacekeeping force deployed to police a peace agreement that ended a five-year civil war with the rebel Revolutionary United Front in November.

According to news agency reports, Nigeria announced that it was sending 900 additional troops, which it said might spearhead an attempt to overturn the coup.

Military officials said the Nigerians will probably wait until the evacuations are complete before taking action.

Ghanaian President Jerry J. Rawlings canceled his trip to next week’s Organization of African Unity meeting and ordered the deployment of troops to Freetown to evacuate Ghanaian nationals living in Sierra Leone, Reuters said. Ghana said it was consulting with Nigeria and Guinea about the situation.

The coup was the third in five years in Sierra Leone, a mineral-rich country impoverished by decades of corruption, political strife and civil war.

Kabbah’s election in February 1996 ended several years of army rule and installed a civilian government. The nation is located on the West Africa “bulge” between Guinea and Liberia.