Freetown/Nairobi - European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana praised Monday the peaceful holding of elections in Sierra Leone and promised continuing EU support for the war-weary West African country. Solana said in Brussels that the new leadership must now help the country forge ahead politically and economically, and the EU would help with this.
Sierra Leone voted Saturday in presidential and parliamentary elections that are viewed as a milestone on the country's path to democracy and stability.
The polls are the first since United Nations peacekeepers pulled out of Sierra Leone two years ago. The country's brutal 11-year civil war ended in 2002, having killed some 50,000 people.
"The elections were well-organized overall," said Marie Anne Isler Beguin, head of the EU observer mission supervising the polls, in Freetown on Sunday.
The election results are expected to be announced in around two weeks.
