British Forces Free Hostages

Date: September 10, 2000 • Location: Pepel, Sierra Leone

British forces freed soldiers and civilians who had been held captive by the militant group the West Side Boys, contributing to the end of the Sierra Leone Civil War.

Operation Barras was a British Army operation that took place in Sierra Leone on 10 September 2000, during the late stages of the Sierra Leone Civil War. The operation aimed to release six British soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment and their Sierra Leone Army (SLA) liaison officer, who were being held by a militia group known as the "West Side Boys". The soldiers were part of a patrol that was returning from a visit to Jordanian peacekeepers attached to the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) at Masiaka on 25 August 2000 when they turned off the main road and down a track towards the village of Magbeni. There the patrol of twelve men was overwhelmed by a large number of heavily armed rebels, taken prisoner, and transported to Gberi Bana on the opposite side of Rokel Creek.