By Alpha Abu
President Julius Maada Bio has set up a high-powered delegation comprising senior security officials to travel to Conakry soon for talks with the Guinean authorities over the disputed border village of Yenga along the Makona River in the Kailahun District of Sierra Leone.
It follows a recent incursion by Guinean soldiers into Yenga, which saw them erecting huge concrete pillars. The act and the relatively large number of armed Guinean soldiers this time alarmed the people of Yenga and prompted a trip to the village a little over a week ago by the Sierra Leone military led by Joint Force Commander Major-General Dauda Fred Alpha.
Guinean military presence in the sleepy village of Sierra Leone first came about during the civil war when they soldiers from the neighbouring country joined government forces to fight RUF rebels.
Following the end of the war in 2002, the Guineans laid claim to the place and refused to leave. Following talks, they withdrew to the official borderline separating the two countries, de-militarising the area with Sierra Leonean troops also not allowed to control it.
A series of talks have taken place between authorities of the two countries over the years to end the Guinean troop presence.
Administrations of former Sierra Leone presidents, Ahmad Tejan Kabba and Ernest Bai Koroma, made a number of engagements with their Guinean counterparts in a bid to get them to respect the official borderline separating the two countries.
France and Britain met in 1882 and 1913 to finalise the land and sea borders of some 817 Km between Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Guinea was colonised by France whilst Sierra Leone was ruled by Britain until independence in 1961.
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