Shelling again rocked the devastated Liberian capital Monrovia on Wednesday with rebels fighting for control of a strategic bridge linking the key port area to the northeastern suburbs.
Defence Minister Daniel Chea said: ”They are pounding our positions in the Stockton Creek bridge area with 81 mm mortars.
This morning they shelled central Monrovia from about 5am to 5:30am (0500 to 0530 GMT) and then shifted their attention elsewhere.”
Rains meanwhile lashed the city. Sounds of light arms fire could be heard from the Mamba Point diplomatic quarter.
Liberian defence sources said the rebels appeared to be trying to control a route to the eastern Congo Town area, where President Charles Taylor and many top government officials have their homes.
The government forces are fighting with the rebels in that area as well. Over the weekend the rebels tried to seize two key bridges leading to central Monrovia but were rebuffed by government forces who pushed them back. The rebels, however, wrested control the port area of the seaside capital.
Hundreds of people meanwhile fled the war-affected zones for the relative safety of the city’s eastern districts.
The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd) main rebel group fighting to oust Taylor for four years on Tuesday rejected a draft peace agreement chalked up by west African mediators in the Ghanaian capital Accra, saying it was inadequate.
The civilian death toll has now reached 600, according to government officials.
As mortars and machinegun-fire ripped through residential districts, panicked residents and aid workers appealed for foreign troops to intervene and re-establish peace. The United Nations refugee agency described the situation in the capital as ”horrific”.
West African ministers and security officers met yesterday in Senegal to discuss the deteriorating situation but failed to thrash out a regional solution to restore peace. The ministers are expected to renew their appeals to Washington to step in.
The EU’s aid coordinator, David Parker, said at least 200 000 displaced people were sheltering in Monrovia’s football stadiums and ruined Masonic lodge. All lacked adequate food or clean water.
”The UN’s warehouses are right in the fighting. If they’ve been looted, the city will run out of food next week,” Parker said by phone from Monrovia, as sub-machinegun fire crackled nearby.
US diplomats in Monrovia yesterday removed 26 corpses from the embassy gates, where frantic civilians imploring America to intervene deposited them in protest on Monday.
Many casualties occurred when mortars hit a US residential compound, which was thronged by hundreds of civilians seeking safety.
It is thought that the residential compound was sheltering some 20,000 refugees. The compound had been raked by mortars and grenades throughout the day.
Aid workers cowering among the displaced people said it was impossible to say whether the rebels or government forces were responsible.
Several western journalists and the last four UN workers in Monrovia were evacuated late on Monday, following the wounding of two reporters, one an American. The remainder were given a choice of boarding the outgoing US helicopters or being expelled from the embassy compound.
Drenching rain magnified the misery for tens of thousands of Monrovians packed into the diplomatic quarter, where many had no shelter or huddled under plastic sheeting.
Angry Liberians demonstrated outside the US embassy on Monday, placing 18 bodies outside the building and denouncing Washington for not having intervened.
Monrovians have cursed Washington for failing to send soldiers to help end the bloodshed in the country which the US established in the mid-19th century as a haven for freed American slaves.
President Bush has said he would only consider sending troops to help if President Charles Taylor, who is wanted by a UN-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone, left the country.
But the prospects of a US military intervention appeared to have receded.
Instead, western diplomats in the region said that Nigeria was likely to deploy around 700 peacekeepers to Liberia within a week, recalling memories of the regional power’s incompetent and corrupt intervention a decade ago.
”It looks like Nigerians are the best we are going to get,” said one of the few western diplomats remaining in Monrovia yesterday. ”America looks more likely to evacuate and close down its embassy than send troops.”
The arrival of 40 US marines at America’s embattled embassy in Monrovia yesterday — raising the total to around 200 — was aimed at helping a retreat, the diplomat said.
The Liberian defence minister, Daniel Chea, said that the rising death toll had called into question earlier pledges by President Taylor to quit once peacekeeping troops had arrived.
Chea put the casualties at more than 600. Aid workers had earlier estimated 100 deaths, though they admitted having trouble getting reliable information in the chaos.
Washington has placed the main responsibility on the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) to lead any mission to end 14 years of almost nonstop war.
But there has been little indication that the regional bloc will quickly deploy troops.
”We hear that Ecowas are talking about dollars and cents, how much each soldier is going to get paid before they come here. In the midst of all this bickering and discussions, people are dying,” Chea said yesterday.
”President Taylor had agreed in principle to leave and what we got in return was an onslaught on the city. It doesn’t matter whether he leaves or not.”
International aid workers said that foreign troops were needed urgently.
”We need international peacekeepers here now, not in one or two months’ time,” said Sam Nagbe of Oxfam.
”People here are really suffering but as long as the fighting continues we are unable to help them.
”The US must commit troops now and end this waiting game that is costing lives,” Nagbe said in a statement.
Washington has reiterated that it is the responsibility of the West African states for halting the bloodshed in Liberia. – Guardian Unlimited Â