FREETOWN. Nov 10: Antigovernment rebels in eastern Sierra Leone slaughtered nearly 100 civilians on Monday while fighting raged in the region for several hours, reporters there said, reports AFP.

The killings of 96 civilians took place in the town of Sumaya. in the eastern part of the diamond-rich area of Tongo fields, they said.

Twelve civilians suffered serious machete wounds and were taken to hospital at Kenema. 240-km east of the capital Freetown. the reporters said.

Sierra Leone has been wracked by civil war since 1991, when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) took up arms against what it saw as the corruption of the Freetown government.

The RUF rebels have joined forces with the former junta which was kicked out of power in February by the Nigerian-led West African force ECOMOG.

Renegade ex-soldiers and rebels are still on the loose in outlying parts of the West African country, where witnesses and medical sources frequently report that they are committing atrocities against civilians.

While the precise agenda of the front remains vague, its methods — said to include immersing limbs in boiling oil — after filling hospitals with hundreds of victims crude amputations, have delivered a clear message that its struggle is far from over.

Officers from the Nigerian-led ECOMOG. now in charge of Sierra Leone's security, have reported that the rebels have also disembowelled pregnant women.

Last week. Sierra Leonean ex-presldent Joseph Momoh was sentenced to 10 years In prison on Thursday on conspiracy charges in connection with the

junta that overthrew the civilian elected government in May 1997.

Momoh. who ruled the country from 1985 to 1992. was cleared by a 12-member jury of treason charges, and thereby escaped a death sentence.

Twenty-four officers and soldiers found guilty of having assisted the junta were executed by firing squad on a beach outside the capital on October 19. provoking condemnation by the international community.

Two days later the High Court sentenced 11 civilians to death in connection with treason charges, seventeen other civilians. among them five Journalists. were also given the death penalty several weeks earlier.

ECOMOG has maintained that Liberian armed forces are assisting die-hard rebels in fighting the civilian-government of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.

Liberia's President Charles Taylro has denied the allegation, saying any Liberians assisting rebel troops were mercenaries.