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/ 10 December 2003
Street battles left at least nine Liberians dead on Wednesday as United Nations forces tried to quell rampages by ex-government militias in Liberia’s capital. UN military commanders said at least one UN peacekeeper was wounded, but neither civilian nor military UN officials would confirm that UN troops had fired back at any point.
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/ 8 December 2003
Hundreds of Liberian fighters handed in their guns to United Nations peacekeepers at Schieffelin camp, 35km southeast of the capital, Monrovia, as the formal disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of an estimated 40Â 000 combatants got under way.
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/ 8 December 2003
The first of two wars to ravage Liberia erupted before Malinda Lakome was even born. But now the 13-year-old soldier in the Liberian national army is ready to trade his weapon for a driver’s licence to help steer the west African state towards peace.
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/ 28 November 2003
War-weary Liberians reacted angrily on Friday after former fighters in the country’s back-to-back civil wars quit a disarmament meeting, and warned them not to hamper the return of peace after 14 years of bloodshed. The fighters accused interim leader Gyude Bryant of appointing government ministers without their input.
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/ 24 November 2003
Children danced in the streets of the Liberian capital, Monrovia, on Friday night and cars flashed their blinker lights in celebration after mains electricity was restored to part of the city for the first time in 10 years. The European Union has provided a diesel-powered generator at a cost of 000 and fuel to run it.
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/ 14 November 2003
Liberia has announced the preservation of 62 000 hectares of forest land in efforts to ease sanctions and rebuild its shattered landscape after 14 years of nearly unabated war. Legal logging has been banned under United Nations-imposed sanctions since July, amid concerns that trees were felled in an environmentally-harmful way.
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/ 15 October 2003
A day after being sworn in as Liberia’s interim leader, Gyude Bryant embarked on the uphill task of rebuilding a country battered by more than a decade of war. His first job is to disarm former fighters in the two wars the country has suffered since 1989, leaving it with a generation of youths whose dominant culture is that of the gun.
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/ 13 October 2003
Liberia was poised on Monday for the inauguration of a transitional government after 14 years of almost uninterrupted civil war, but ordinary people had little to cheer about as hardships persisted. ”Nothing has changed, the situation is even worse for us here,” said 51-year-old Edward Konuwa.
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/ 12 October 2003
When Liberia’s new leaders gather on Tuesday to take the next step on the path towards peace in their shattered country, one man’s long shadow will hang ominously over proceedings. The UN has alleged Taylor is still pulling strings from the Nigerian city where he is exiled.
At least three people were killed and seven wounded on Wednesday in clashes between rebels and government troops and militiamen as UN peacekeepers began taking over from African soldiers in Liberia. The UN has appealed to the international community for -million to help reconstruct the west African state.
At least one Liberian rebel fighter has been killed after a convoy escorting a rebel leader came under attack in an eastern district of the capital, Monrovia, eyewitnesses said. The area is home to many supporters of former president Charles Taylor, who was forced to leave office in August.
United Nations peacekeepers were due on Wednesday to take over from west African soldiers policing a ceasefire between rebels and the government in Liberia. The UN Security Council voted last month to deploy a peacekeeping force in Liberia, which is struggling to emerge from 14 years of almost uninterrupted war.
Disgraced president Charles Taylor may have quit Liberia but reminders of his violence-wracked six-year rule still haunt war-ravaged Monrovia, where weathered signs bear the sayings he coined to remind Liberians of their civic duties.
It’s 11pm on a Saturday night in downtown Monrovia and at the African Palace nightclub, revellers are getting down to some serious partying.
Desperate for food, tens of thousands of civilians broke through barricades on Monrovia’s front-line bridges on Friday, reuniting Liberia’s war-divided capital after 10 weeks of rebel siege. Many of those pouring across were also searching for their families.
The UN children’s agency has set its sights on efforts to take thousands of child soldiers off the streets where they have been used as frontline gunmen by both government and rebel forces in Liberia’s devastating wars.
Thousands of Liberians looted food Tuesday from Monrovia’s port, a day before rebels were due to hand the area over to aid workers eager to feed the starving city. The pillaging coincided with the arrival of a United Nations ship stocked with food and medicines, which was anchored off the coast.
Liberia’s main rebel group said on Tuesday it wanted to lead the interim government following the resignation and departure of former president Charles Taylor.
Liberia on Tuesday began its first full day without Charles Taylor as president, as efforts were set to intensify to get a lasting ceasefire and begin distribution of urgently needed humanitarian aid.
Charles Taylor stepped down as president of Liberia and flew into exile last night as three US warships neared the country’s coast, boosting hopes that US marines would join Nigerian-led peacekeepers enforcing a fragile ceasefire.
Nigerian and South African forces guarded the executive mansion of Liberia’s embattled President Charles Taylor with automatic weapons and armoured vehicles on Monday as the war-ravaged country counted down the hours before his promised resignation.
While Nigeria readies a jungle home in exile for warlord-president Charles Taylor, many inside and outside Taylor’s war-battered nation worry he will keep up trouble-making from abroad — and return to fight another day.
Taylor’s 14-year career as one of Africa’s big men is due to end at 11.59am tomorrow, when he bows to his enemies and cedes power. He plans to address the nation today, but there is no electricity and, in any case, most televisions and radios are destroyed or looted.
Clutching her daughter’s photograph to her breast, Rebecca throws back her head and wails. Fighters burst into her home and raped the 10-year-old girl before the helpless mother, leaving the child lying in a pool of blood and vomit — dead.
Liberian President Charles Taylor on Thursday skipped a planned resignation speech to parliament as west African peacekeepers began patrolling the war-riven capital Monrovia.
Liberian rebels will fight on ”till the last man drops” if President Charles Taylor fails to leave the country next week as promised, a rebel leader said on Tuesday.
Liberian President Charles Taylor expects to be shielded from prosecution for war crimes once he is in exile in Nigeria, his spokesperson said Tuesday.