Pushing deeper into unsecured countryside, West African peacekeepers deployed to the edge of Liberia's second-largest city on Saturday -- but were unable to enter to help terrorized residents who accuse occupying rebels of looting.
Peacekeeping commanders met with Movement for Democracy rebel officials Thursday to work out logistics and asked to move into the southeastern port of Buchanan, but rebels refused.
Peace force troops said Saturday they'd succeeded in their primary goal, however -- positioning themselves between rebel and government forces to prevent new clashes.
The deployment in Buchanan gives peacekeepers control of the third -- and last -- main road leading from the capital, Monrovia, to the volatile interior.
In Buchanan, residents whispered stories of rebels plundering the Atlantic Ocean port with impunity after seizing it July 28. Fighting then forced 35,000 people into displaced camps, according to the UN.
Moses Williams, 20, moved into one makeshift camp after a rebel band forced him out of his own home -- and moved into it themselves.
"They've taken everything," Williams said. "We have no food, no mattresses, no clothing."
These days, rebel fighters armed with Kalashnikov rifles and grenade launchers cruise Buchanan's streets in pickup trucks. Most civilians stay home from dusk to dawn for fear of being harassed.
Residents said rebel authorities had also prevented people from leaving the town, but it was unclear why.
About 10km west of the city, members of a 550-strong peace force contingent from Nigeria, Benin and Togo began setting up camp on a river's edge that marks the official frontline.
Peacekeepers found rebels patrolling on foot 30km west of Buchanan in violation of an August peace agreement, and ordered them to pull back.
Aid workers are hoping the peace force will secure the city's port so vital humanitarian supplies can flow in. The port is officially closed, but some supplies have reached town shelves from Monrovia by canoe, said Lawrence George, a Catholic missionary from India.
Buchanan has been short on food since fighting erupted here several months ago. Water supplies have been threatened after 10 bodies were dumped into town wells, also during July clashes, George said.
Some 6,000 people had taken refuge in his church and 458 children there -- all under the age of five -- showed signs of severe malnutrition, George said.
"If they do bring food, will it be safe?" George asked, referring to the possibility of aid agencies working in the lawless town.
The Movement for Democracy in Liberia is the smaller of the country's two rebel groups.
The larger rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, is based in the north and besieged Monrovia for over two months during the recent three-year insurgency, helping to drive out former President Charles Taylor.
The 3,500-strong peace force first landed in the capital in August and soon took control of a key road running northwest to the town of Tubmanburg, taking up positions to secure it just outside Monrovia.
On Tuesday, about 650 Guinea-Bissau troops deployed along a second main road running northeast from the capital, clearing rebels and government-allied militias from the north-central town of Kakata and later, from Salala and Totota.
Taylor stepped down Aug. 11 under pressure from rebels and the international community. He now lives in exile in villas in the jungles of southern Nigeria.
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