Print

Mail

wiki links

Desperate civilians flee Liberia's new nightmare

Civilians fleeing by the thousands appealed for rescue, as a trip into the countryside showed Liberia's nightmare far from over -- with families clutching bone-thin babies and speaking of near-nightly gunfire.

Exhausted refugees streamed south, or crowded by the thousands into dirt yards, schools and churches in and around the last government-held town, Zensu, on a road linking the rebel-held north to the capital, Monrovia, 95km away.

With a still-building West African peace force yet to venture into the interior, families ran out, screaming for help, at the sight of some of the few civilian vehicles from the south.

"We're suffering. Our children are dying," Fatu Leonfay, 42, shouted Wednesday. "We're dropping them on the road."

Emaciated women around her cradled naked children, their bellies bloated by malnutrition.

Leonfay and others pleaded for peacekeepers.

"If they don't come, we'll die," she cried.

At nearby Maimu refugee camp, fighting has trapped 60,000 people without food aid since April. Aid workers came up briefly this week, empty-handed, to tell camp residents living off straggling corn plants and wild greens there would be no food deliveries until security returned.

A nearly month-old West African peace mission has calmed Monrovia, where rebels lifted 10 weeks of siege after forcing out warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor on Aug. 11.

But despite a week-old peace deal, reports of rebel fighting persist in the northeast, southeast and center of the country.
This story has been viewed 1801 times.