The 60 blind Liberians who were reported missing in May have been found following the recapture by Liberian government forces of Tubmanburg town in western Bomi County from rebel control, news organisations reported on Sunday.
Shortly after the rebels were driven out, the agencies said, scores of malnourished civilians including 52 blind people emerged from their hideouts in the bush. One of the blind men was quoted by AFP as telling journalists that food and medicine were inadequate in the area but all the blind people were fine.
Heavily-armed Liberian troops stepped up patrols of the provincial town – 60 km north-west of Monrovia – after driving away rebel forces who had controlled Tubmanburg for nearly three months, the BBC reported.
Journalists, it said, had driven into the town under security escort after the army had dislodged rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd) late on Friday. They found the streets littered with shells of ammunition and 10 bullet-riddled and mutilated bodies lying in the outskirts.
Other sources in the capital, Monrovia, contacted by Irin on Monday said they could not verify that Tubmanburg had been recaptured but said “most likely the government’s announcement that it had captured Tubmanburg and other areas in the county was true.”
The rebels, according to the sources, said they “had taken a tactical retreat.”
General Roland Duo, Commander of the Navy Division, whose forces recaptured the town was quoted by BBC as saying surrounding towns, like Sawmill, were first attacked and retaken by government troops before advancing on Tubmanburg.
Fighting for the control of Tubmanburg had been going on since May when Lurd rebels captured the town. Lurd rebels who started their fight to oust President Charles Taylor in 1998 have intensified their fight in the past three months.
The blind people went missing along with a Catholic priest, Gerry Jenkins, who had been caring for them. Jenkins was later set free and handed over by Lurd rebels to the Vatican embassy in Conakry, the capital of neighbouring Guinea.
The priest was freed after a team of Liberian Christian and Muslim leaders traveled to Guinea and negotiated his release, leaving the fate of the blind people unknown. – Irin