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Health workers caught in Liberia's deadly crossfire

Sweat streaming down their faces, men in improvised red-cross bibs run through streets strewn with bullet casings pushing wheelbarrows with bloodied victims of another mortar barrage -- Monrovia's version of an ambulance service.

After years of government neglect, the few health centers still functioning in Liberia's rebel-besieged, shell-pocked capital are stretched to the limit -- overflowing with war-wounded, battling for supplies and harassed by drunken and drugged fighters.

"Liberian doctors are frustrated. They are crying," said Dr. Mohammed Sheriff, medical director at the city's main John F. Kennedy hospital. "They want to see an end to this war."

The few private medical operations still functioning say they are running out of everything -- fuel for vehicles and generators, food to feed their patients, and basic equipment like gloves and IVs.

In most cases, all they can do is stabilize the most critically injured and send them on to the nominally government-run, Red Cross-funded John F. Kennedy hospital, often in the wheelbarrows popularly known as the "push push" system.

Sheriff's hospital, still partially destroyed from the last 1989-96 civil war, has treated more than 1,000 war-injured since rebels fighting to oust Liberian President Charles Taylor launched their latest bid for the capital July 19.

Wards are full, and the injured are now being treated on mattresses on the floor in what was once a storage area.

Patients are discharged as soon as possible, in some cases to orphanages and schools turned refugee camps, if they have no other place to go.

Bodies have piled up in the tiny morgue in what was meant to be a maternity ward -- now the only fully functioning part of the hospital. With fighting raging, many families are too afraid to venture from their homes to claim their dead.

On Monday, 66 bodies were taken to a makeshift cemetery on the outskirts of the city and buried in a mass grave.

As fighting surged over the weekend, pickup trucks full of armed government fighters screeched up to the gates and dropped off more dead and wounded. One fighter slapped a nurse and waved a gun around, threatening to kill everyone if his commander's leg was amputated.

Slumped on a mattress on the floor, Eugene Gray cradled his bandaged arm and moaned softly, wondering if anyone cared about the hundreds of civilians like him cut down in Liberia's deadly crossfire. The 24-year-old was searching for food when a grenade explosion shattered his arm and part of his leg. Two friends died in the blast.

"Nobody sees me," he said, eyes rolling in pain. "Only God."

Even before the surge in bloodshed, Liberia's health care system was in shambles -- largely dependent on foreign aid and with just 26 doctors recorded for the country's 3 million people.

Now, there are even fewer.

For security reasons, the International Committee of the Red Cross has evacuated eight foreign staffers, leaving just seven at John F. Kennedy -- including two surgeons -- who performed close to 600 operations last month alone.

Overwhelmed Liberian staff say they have only a little over a week's supply of rice and fuel left. Already, the hospital has stopped feeding staff in a city running desperately short of food and is reorganizing services to save power.

With the country's main port and its warehouses in rebel hands, the Red Cross could soon have to fly in food and fuel from neighboring countries.

Rebels have pledged to turn over the port to a West African peacekeeping force, whose first members arrived Monday at the airport, 50km east of Monrovia. But with the force still days from even beginning to patrol Monrovia, it is unclear when that will happen.

"What we want most especially is security," said Dr. Lily Samvee of St. Joseph's Catholic Hospital. "Even if we get supplies, without security, we won't be able to work."

With little public transportation, staff walk kilometers to get to work, braving gunfire and mortar barrages. Others are cut off entirely by the fighting.

Nurse Hannah Zayee, 44, has been working 48-hour shifts to help keep John F. Kennedy running.

"We need peace," she said. "It is the innocent people who are dying."
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