Munitions Accident Kills 5 Peacekeepers, U.N. Says
Five United Nations peacekeepers from Zambia were killed and 13 others wounded in Sierra Leone when a box of mortar shells they were moving accidentally blew up, U.N. officials said.
The shells had been turned over to the U.N. mission in the West African nation Saturday as part of a drive to disarm fighters from a decade-long civil war, a spokeswoman for the force said.
“It appears it was just a tragic accident,” she said, adding that the weaponry handed in is sometimes old and dangerous.
The explosion occurred Saturday in eastern Sierra Leone.
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