The old public hospital here in the Liberian capital stands on a hill overlooking the Atlantic with a pair of stone lions perched alongside its wide majestic steps. It was once the seat of the health ministry. A generation of Liberians was born in its wards.
Today, it is a hollow cavern offering a grim sanctuary for families displaced by their country's unending war. Laundry is laid out on the steps to dry. In the dark, a young girl stands in a doorway, washing with a bucket of water procured from who-knows-where. The beach out front has become a vast public toilet -- running water and latrines having become luxuries for the thousands of Liberians who have crowded in from the countryside.
Up the road, on a promontory overlooking the sprawling city named after former US President James Monroe, stands what looks very much like a replica of the White House. It is Monrovia's Masonic Temple, and its tall stone pillars announce the aspirations of a city settled 150 years ago by freed American slaves, looking for their own piece of Africa.
PHOTO: AFP
Now, it is dingy and undignified, occupied by hundreds of people chased from their homes by mortars and machine guns as government and rebel forces dueled for control of Monrovia last week. Head-wraps and plastic mats shield the windows, keeping out the rain. The unkempt front lawn does double duty as laundry and lavatory.
With health conditions so poor, many children here have been wheezing, vomiting and falling ill with diarrhea. A nearby clinic, run by the French aid agency Doctors Without Borders, is filling up with cholera patients.
Few are leaving the Masonic Temple, uncertain about how long the latest ceasefire, announced last Friday, will hold.
"The heart of a man is greatly wicked," roared Nathaniel Morris, a schoolteacher, who fled here last Tuesday. "We only wait."
Liberia's disintegration cries out from the ruins of its capital. Once, there was running water and electricity around the clock. Tens of thousands of foreigners made their living here:
The Lebanese who plied their trade had a school opposite the old public hospital. The Indians built a Sikh temple down the road. Swiss, American and Belgian airlines made regular touchdowns at the airport. Through the Cold War years, US aid poured into the country, no matter what sort of president was in power.
Monrovia today bears the scars of more than a decade-long string of battles. Its ruined architecture is the starkest metaphor for the collapse of its most basic functions.
The healthcare infrastructure has crumbled. Schools have turned into refugee camps. Militias loyal to President Charles Taylor have become a terrifying de facto police force, accused by ordinary citizens of robbing them in the dark.
At 4am on a recent day government soldiers visited one man, demanding cash and leaving him with a bullet wound to his abdomen.
His sister carried him in a wheelbarrow to seek medical help -- there is no ambulance service here. A neighborhood doctor, Keressemba Conde, dressed the man's wounds. In Conde's clinic, he has been trying to perform surgery without the most basic medical supplies -- no gauze, no pain killers, no antibiotics.
The doctor said he himself had been threatened by pro-government militias. They came around the other night, he said, demanding his car.
If and when an international peacekeeping force arrives, this is the rubble that it will face. Calls for intervention have grown increasingly louder in recent days.
Whether the Americans will take an active part in that intervention depends on a number of issues that are yet to be resolved, including when and how Taylor will step down as president.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was