Forty UNMIL personnel have died in Liberia since the mission deployed to the country in October 2003, the Secretary General's Special Representative said Saturday. "The personnel died of Lassa fever, malaria, accidents and other diseases," Ambassador Jacques Paul Klein told reporters in Monrovia. Liberia currently hosts the largest peacekeeping mission of about 15,000 personnel in the world. Klein, who is also coordinator of the United Nations in Liberia, called for the removal of sanctions first imposed on Liberia during exiled former president Charles Taylor's era in 2000. The sanctions on timber and diamonds were imposed to curtail gun- running for diamonds by the Taylor regime with the erstwhile Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone which was disbanded in 2000. The defunct RUF was reportedly an offshoot of Taylor's defunct National Patriotic Front of Liberia which started the civil war in December 2004. Klein said it was "pitiful" that a country with vast resources like Liberia had only a budget of 70 million dollars. He called for the lifting of sanctions to allow for the exploitation of resources and rebuilding, especially restoring safe drinking water and electricity. The country has been without these facilities for the past 14 years. Klein also called for investment in the agricultural sector to ensure self-sufficiency in food production.
