United Nations police and their Liberian counterparts used tear gas on Friday to break up a protest in Monrovia by thousands of students calling for salary arrears to be paid to their teachers, witnesses said.
Stores, supermarkets and other businesses in the capital of the West African state shut down as the students began throwing stones.
But police from the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia, known as Unmil, along with the Liberian police, intervened swiftly and threw tear canisters among the rampaging students.
After they were dispersed from central Monrovia, the students regrouped and proceeded towards the presidential mansion, but upon arrival on Capitol Hill, the seat of the presidency, legislature and supreme court, Unmil police dispersed them again with tear gas.
More than 40 000 state school teachers have been threatening to lay down their chalk if they are not paid resettlement allowances and 18 months’ back pay owed them by the administration of the now-exiled former president Charles Taylor. — Sapa-AFP