Some 800 women in the Sierra Leone town of Kailahun have paraded in favour of genital mutilation and told donors opposed to the practice to keep their money, demonstrators and witnesses said.

Women wearing colourful beads and adorned with seashells chanted songs in the local dialect that warned authorities and foreign organisations against "any attempt to take away our traditional ritual."

The United Nations World Health Organisation says FGM - the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia and related injury - is recorded in 28 African nations and opposes the practice on medical grounds.