Rebels release two to 'convey demands'

London - Sierra Leone rebels holding some 30 hostages have released two British army officers to convey their demands to the UN and the Freetown government, a British sunday newspaper reported.

The two officers, whose existence had not been known, were with five other British army colleagues in the United Nations Military Observer (UNOMSIL) team in Sierra Leone abducted on Wednesday, the paper said.

Along with Nigerian soldiers of the West African peacekeeping force ECOMOG, UN humanitarian workers and journalists, they were snatched by renegades of the Sierra Leone Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), who are demanding the release of their leader Johnny Paul Koroma.

The newspaper said the two officers are now helping negotiators by describing the swampy terrain where the rest of the captives are being held in the Occra Hills, around 40 km east of Freetown.

It also claimed they had warned against a military operation to try to rescue the other hostages being held.

A British Foreign Office spokesman did not deny the two officers had been freed but said: "We have an agreement with the United Nations that we do not go into the nationalities of those working for them."

The paper also named the British officers still in captivity as Lt Col Ian Howard-Williams and Majors John McEwan, M Rawlings, G Bradley and T Lyall.

The Foreign Office spokesman said: "We have an agreement with the Ministry of Defence that we do not confirm the names."

Sources at UNOMSIL said on Thursday that 37 people had originally been captured and five were released immediately. Two more people, an unidentified UNOMSIL staffer and a journalist, were freed later. - Sapa-AFP