Death toll rises in fight for Monrovia

With posters declaring that the dead were un-armed, angry crowds laid out the bloody, broken bodies of shelling victims before the US embassy in Monrovia on Thursday, accusing the US of failing to protect Monrovia's people from fighting overrunning the capital. PHOTO: AP

Rocket barrages and mortars pounded the hard-fought port of Liberia's capital yesterday, and Charles Taylor's lawless government forces roamed house-to-house under the bombardment -- robbing desperate families trapped in the four-day-old rebel siege of the city.

Monrovia's mortuaries filled as the death toll climbed into the high hundreds, leaving civilians to hastily bury the dead -- family members, and strangers found on the streets -- on the city's Atlantic Ocean beaches, at times with rockets slamming into the sand around them.

With the city's flour stocks tied up in the embattled port, rice, flour and other staples tripled in price -- if they could be found at all. Hunger and disease grew in the city of one million, swelled by hundreds of thousands of more refugees living in school yards, the national soccer stadium and the city's once-grand Masonic temple.

"Only God almighty can rescue us from this nightmare," Romeo Smith, 22, said, stretched out, hands folded, on the pavement against a light pole on the spot where he used to sell bread -- until flour ran out.

West African mediators had Liberia's rebels and government under a seemingly toothless ultimatum: return to a June 17 ceasefire by 10am yesterday, or see month-old peace talks in nearby Ghana formally end.

Insurgents are fighting a three-year-old campaign to oust Taylor, a newly UN-indicted war crimes suspect blamed internationally for much of West Africa's gunrunning and war-making since he launched Liberia into civil war in 1989.

Rebels have taken more than 60 percent of the country and now are going for the end goal: taking the capital, and toppling Taylor. Fighting surged over the weekend after Taylor announced he would stay in power at least through the January end of his term, in what was seen as a reneging of pledges during the peace talks to cede power in the interest of peace.

Taylor's government paused in the defense of the capital long enough to turn a studiedly restrained response to US President George W. Bush's call on Thursday for Taylor to step down. Liberia urged the US to "remain proactive in the peace process" and made no direct mention of Bush's key request.

Combatants likewise gave no sign yesterday of hearing the international appeals for a return to talks.

Defense Minister Daniel Chea had vowed to rein in massive looting by his forces in the embattled city, but residents contacted by telephone around the port spoke of armed government troops robbing households through the night, as artillery boomed.

"We spent a sleepless night," said one trapped resident, refusing to give his name.

"Very soon, Liberia will cease to exist as a nation," said another resident, Lucy Toe, 38. "We have a situation where brothers are killing brothers."

Residents said they believed the civilian death toll in the port alone to be at least 500, with families, left without any alternative, slipping corpses into swamps and interring them in shallow graves on the beach.

Medecins Sans Frontiers appealed to nurses and other medical workers to go to the city's soccer stadium, where tens of thousands of refugees have crowded into sky boxes and stands.

Cholera had broken out among the refugees at the stadium even before fighting broke out on Tuesday.