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Up to 300 killed in battle for Monrovia
Agencies
Thursday June 26, 2003
Liberia's health minister today reported 200-300 civilians had been killed and 1,000 wounded in a two-day battle for the country's besieged capital, as morgue workers described mortuaries filled to overflowing.
Soldiers commandeered private vehicles to collect more bodies from the streets of Monrovia at daylight this morning, working to a backdrop of pounding rain and crackling gunfire.
Monrovia was on edge but calmer early today, with the shelling, rockets and frantic refugee movements of the past two days silenced.
The Associated Press reported that there was no indication of retreat by rebels fighting to take the city, and unconfirmed reports had rebels sighted around the port, a key objective well into Monrovia.
Reuters reported that fighters loyal to the government had pushed rebels out of the capital's port on today.
Military officials said rebels had retreated to the area around St Paul's River Bridge, 6 miles from the heart of Monrovia.
Liberia's rebels are driving home a three-year war to oust warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor, a newly indicted UN-war-crimes suspect who launched the West African nation into 14 years of conflict in 1989.
Early today, the health minister Peter Coleman told the Associated Press that the past two days of fighting in the city had killed between 200-300 civilians, and injured 1,000. There was no word on government or rebel casualties.
Mortuary workers put the civilian toll in the "hundreds", describing morgues stacked with dead.
Mr Coleman said the dead included at least nine Liberians killed when rockets struck an evacuated US diplomatic residential compound yesterday. Thousands of Monrovia's residents had taken refuge in the compound, which is across the street from the heavily guarded US embassy.
The US state department confirmed late Tuesday that two embassy workers, one a gardener, one a guard, both Liberians, had been killed at the residential compound.
In neighbouring Sierra Leone, UN helicopters and crews were on standby in the capital, Freetown. UN spokesman Patrick Coker said crews were on "very short notice" to fly to Monrovia for evacuation for remaining UN workers.
French military helicopters and a French warship evacuated 530 foreigners from Monrovia earlier this month.
The US embassy remains staffed and open in Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century.
The European Union, UN and international aid groups also are maintaining a reduced presence there.
US urged to intervene in Liberia
David Clarke in Monrovia
Monday June 30, 2003
West African countries yesterday urged the US to join them in sending a force to stop Liberia's war, and a UN security council mission said it expected the world body to back intervention.
Two failed rebel assaults on Monrovia this month have left an estimated 700 people dead and prompted calls for a peacekeeping force from the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, Britain, France and legions of Liberians.
Because of historic ties to a country founded by freed American slaves, the US is under most pressure to step in to help end the fighting in a war that has spread turmoil in west Africa for more than a decade.
The senior official of the Economic Community of West African States said in Nigeria that a credible force was needed to separate the warring sides.
"We can provide the manpower," Mohammed ibn Chambas told reporters. "But we need material support and participation of some of the members of the [UN] security council, especially the United States."
President George Bush has called for the resignation of Liberia's president, Charles Taylor, a former warlord wanted for war crimes by an international court.
But there has been little official sign that Mr Bush would be willing to send in US troops. Washington well remembers the military's humiliating withdrawal from a humanitarian mission to Somalia in 1993 that left 18 Americans dead.
A visiting UN security council mission met regional officials and Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, in Abuja yesterday. Nigeria would be a likely candidate to send peacekeepers; it dominated a force that intervened in Liberia in the 1990s.
"We shall report back to the [security] council about the request made by Ecowas for support in the proposed peace mission, and I am sure the council will be willing to help," said Britain's UN ambassador, Jeremy Greenstock, the leader of the mission.
Mr Greenstock publicly urged the US last week to lead a multinational force.
Taylor gives his terms for quitting
Owen Bowcott
Wednesday July 2, 2003
President Charles Taylor of Liberia, indicted for war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone and besieged by rebel forces, will stand down if the case against him is dropped, one of his ministers said yesterday.
As the UN prepared to evacuate refugees from the capital, Monrovia, Mr Taylor's "special emissary" tried to negotiate a process of "national reconciliation" without retribution.
Samuel Jackson told a meeting at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London that if Mr Taylor stepped down there would be retribution against his supporters in which thousands would be killed. But Mr Taylor was willing to go if there was a peace process.
Mr Jackson met Foreign Office officials to discuss a possible international peacekeeping force for Liberia.
Britain, France and the US believe Mr Taylor has to go. Sanctions against Liberian timber are due to be introduced in a fortnight.
Asked what the president would do when he left power, Mr Jackson replied: "He sees his future as a coffee or cocoa farmer, his home in Monrovia converted to a presidential library. He will be the granddaddy of Liberian politics."
Older articles:
26-06-2003
Civilians flee as rebels advance in Liberia's capital
22-06-2003
Liberia lives in terror as tyrant defies West
21-06-2003
Liberia's child soldiers play war games with real bullets
18-06-2003
Ceasefire in Liberia raises peace hopes
15-06-2003
Sense of despair haunts the African Renaissance