With rebel forces bearing down on the Liberian capital, French helicopters swooped in to rescue more than 500 Europeans, Americans and other foreigners as explosions sounded in the distance while fighting resumed on the outskirts of the besieged city.
Insurgents battling President Charles Taylor's weakened government pushed several kilometers inside Monrovia's western outskirts Monday. Officials renewed calls for a cease-fire.
Liberians came out of their shacks and watched silently as the helicopters flew back and forth. Some headed to the US Embassy, pleading for rescue from the US, which many Liberians still see as their country's big brother.
PHOTO: AFP
"When will you be helping us? We are terrified," Marcus Kollie said as US Marines manned sandbag bunkers on the embassy roof. "We were going to stick it out, but it's time to go," Iddo Yodder, a gray-bearded Mennonite missionary from Texas, said as he was evacuated.
"It's a very heavy feeling leaving all our Liberian friends behind, knowing what they have to endure," said his wife, Viola Yodder. "All you can do is cry."
Liberian forces and local radio reported more fighting on Monrovia's west side as the evacuations began.
Explosions sounded occasionally from that direction, subsiding at midday but picking up again at nightfall.
Officials prepared for the evacuation over the weekend, when rebels fighting Taylor since 1999 made two pushes into the capital, the only part of the West African nation he controls.
Foreigners and residents feared a bloody battle for Monrovia, a city of 1 million flooded by refugees.
Government forces and rebel factions have repeatedly clashed in the city, killing thousands, since Liberia plunged into civil wars after Taylor launched a rebellion in 1989.
France's UN Mission in New York said 535 people from 38 countries were evacuated from Liberia on Monday, including about 100 Americans. The French ship they were taken to was headed to Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
The French military provided much of the manpower and might for the evacuation from Liberia, a nation founded in the 19th century by freed American slaves.
It is the second time in a year that France has orchestrated the speedy departure of foreigners from a West African nation sunken into chaos.
French troops evacuated hundreds of foreigners -- including many Americans -- from Ivory Coast when insurgents launched a rebellion there last fall.
France has a heavy presence in West Africa, where there are many former French colonies. It took a lead role in Liberia in part because a French warship was off shore, American officials said.
The first helicopters took off at dawn from the white-walled, barbed-wire topped compound of the European Union, where scores of foreigners gathered overnight.
Aid workers, ducking debris sent flying by the twirling blades, ran down a rocky hillside to get into the helicopters.
French forces stood guard with heavy weapons on the fern- and palm-overgrown hillside, as the aircraft spun off over the Atlantic.
"We can't work, and we had to leave," Isabelle de Bourning of the aid group Medicins Sans Frontieres said as she ran for a helicopter. "I hope it will be quick."
Helicopters then touched down at the nearby US Embassy compound to collect Americans and those with dual citizenship.
Children waiting at the embassy pressed their faces against the windows to watch the helicopters clattering in.
A teenager sat slumped in a corner cradling her arm, which was wounded by a bullet.
Many Americans, including missionaries who have lived in Liberia for years, refused to leave. Others departed reluctantly.
American Jody Scharfenorth left behind 330 Liberian children she cared for at a Monrovia orphanage.
"The soldiers have already showed up at the door wanting them to help bury the dead and take care of the wounded," she said. "I didn't even get to say goodbye."
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