Liberia civil war claims 90 lives
A thundering barrage of mortars shook Liberia’s capital, hitting two US Embassy compounds and residential neighbourhoods and killing more than 90 people, as government and rebel forces fought over President Charles Taylor’s last stronghold.
Wailing with grief, Liberians lined up bloodied, mangled bodies outside the US Embassy, demanding to know why Washington had not sent troops to end more than a decade of strife in the country founded by freed American slaves.
With more than 360 people injured, yesterday appeared to be the bloodiest single day of fighting in three rebel attempts to take Monrovia in the past two months.
Helicopters swept into the embassy, bringing in a Marine contingent to protect the facility and evacuate some foreigners.
In Washington, officials announced that some 4,500 more American sailors and Marines have been ordered ready for possible duty in the embattled west African nation.
“We’re concerned about our people,” President George W Bush told a press conference in Crawford, Texas.
But he indicated he had not yet decided the size of a force that might be sent to help a promised peacekeeping mission in Liberia. “We continue to monitor the situation very closely,” Bush said.
During more than two hours of sustained mortar fire, a shell slammed into a US Embassy residential compound where some 10,000 terrified Liberians had taken refuge, killing 25 people, aid workers said. Many more were wounded in the strike, including two Liberian embassy guards.
Across the street, in the sprawling embassy complex overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, a shell hit the commissary building. There were no reports of injuries there.
After the blasts, enraged Liberians dragged bodies from the residential compound and lined them up in front of the embassy, next to a wall emblazoned with the American seal.
“We’re dying here,” screamed some in the crowd, as two American servicemen in camouflage watched from behind bullet proof glass.
One man held up a hastily scrawled sign: “Today G Bush kill(ed) Liberia people.”
Down the hill from the Embassy, a small boy lay face-down in the grass – the victim of another blast just yards away. Leaves of greens he was collecting for food lay scattered around his body.
Neighbourhood residents used a mat to carry away a man bleeding from the leg.
In a densely populated residential neighbourhood, a shell hit a house, killing 18 people in one strike, emergency workers at the scene said.
At least 47 Liberians were killed in other strikes today, officials at Monrovia’s main John F Kennedy hospital and aid groups said.
More than 200 injured people arrived at the hospital in pickup-trucks, police cars and wheelbarrows.
About 50 others were being treated at an International Committee of the Red Cross trauma centre and 112 at two clinics set up by French medical group Medecins Sans Frontieres.
Before the shelling started, American HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters landed in the US Embassy compound in driving rain, dropping off about half of a 41-member Marine security team.
About 23 foreign humanitarian workers and journalists clutching bags and backpacks then ran down to the spinning aircraft. Among them were the United Nation’s last seven foreign staff, who had returned to Monrovia just two weeks before during a lull in fighting
Many expressed frustration at having to leave.
“We came in to do a job. We have the ability and resources to do the job. But we don’t have the security,” said Eleanor Monbiot, of World Vision.
Hundreds of disappointed Liberians stood in the street outside, many asking when Marines would come to help them.
“What we need aren’t those that are just coming to mind American properties, but those who will be deployed on the ground to give us the feeling that peace is really coming,” said Moses Smith, 32, who stood in a cluster of people following events on a hand-held radio.
West African nations have promised to send more than 1,500 troops to enforce a repeatedly violated June 17 ceasefire. But many here won’t be satisfied that stability is possible unless US peacekeepers land in the country.
“The international community has once again let the people of Liberia down,” information minister Reginald Goodrich said.
He accused the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy rebel movement of a “very vicious, very murderous” attack.
But Joe Wylie, a LURD delegate at peace talks in nearby Ghana, said the government was also firing shells.
“LURD was not responsible for shooting mortars into the embassy,” Wylie said. “We have our backs to the US Embassy ... They (government forces) were shooting at us.”
He threatened to capture Taylor if he did not leave voluntarily.
Bush has said any deployment of US troops is conditional on the departure of Taylor, a former warlord indicted for war crimes in Sierra Leone, where he supported a notoriously brutal rebel movement.
Taylor has pledged to resign and accept an offer of asylum in Nigeria – but only after peacekeepers arrive to ensure an orderly transition.
Until then, Taylor has vowed to fight to the last man in Monrovia, his last remaining stronghold after three years of civil war. LURD controls most of the north of the country and a smaller rebel faction is in the south east.
Fierce fighting continued today in the port area, where government and rebel fighters in jeans and t-shirts traded machine gun and grenade fire along two bridges.
Taylor launched Liberia’s last civil war in 1989, emerging in 1996 as the country’s strongest warlord. He was elected president the following year, and now faces rebels who include former rivals from the earlier war.
