FREETOWN (Reuters) - Hopes rose on Sunday for the release of around 30 hostages held by a rebel faction in Sierra Leone after former military ruler Johnny Paul Koroma said he had told the rebels to free them immediately. The hostage-takers, supporters of Koroma who feel neglected in a July peace deal in the impoverished former British colony, had made an appeal from Koroma broadcast on Sunday one of their conditions for releasing the hostages. Koroma, interviewed by BBC radio, said he had spoken directly with the men. „I told them to make sure they release them today without any precondition. They‘ve accepted that they are going to release them, including the children,“ he said. The hostages, who include five British soldiers and are mainly U.N. military observers and Nigerian peacekeepers, were seized on Wednesday during a trip to the interior for the handover of abducted children. The hostage takers had accused their Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel allies of holding Koroma against his will. A U.N. official told Reuters Koroma was in Liberia‘s capital Monrovia. The BBC said he was speaking from there. Sierra Leone‘s rebels, who came close to taking the capital Freetown in January, have been blamed for the widespread mutilation of civilians, typically by hacking off hands or arms. The hostages, of whom I was briefly one, are being held about 70 km (45 miles) east of Freetown. The rebel faction is also holding at least four West African soldiers, whom they captured earlier. Their leaders have said all along they did not plan to harm the hostages and would release them eventually. They have also demanded food and medicine. Koroma denied that the rebel movement was divided. „We are still united… the marriage is still intact,“ he told the BBC. Togo‘s Foreign Minister Joseph Kokou Koffigoh and representatives of six other West African countries monitoring the peace deal met in Freetown on Saturday. State radio said they urged the immediate release of the hostages without conditions but expressed appreciation to all sides for respecting a ceasefire and working towards implementation of the peace deal. President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who won 1996 multi-party elections, and RUF leader Foday Sankoh, who took up arms in 1991, signed the peace deal, their second, in Togo on July 7. The first peace deal, agreed after Kabbah‘s election, unravelled and disgruntled soldiers ousted him in May 1997. The latest deal grants government posts to the RUF and to Koroma loyalists, their allies since the 1997 coup. The West African force ousted the junta in early 1998. The RUF held 17 foreigners hostage in 1994 and 1995.