Liberia's warring parties have agreed in principle to sign a ceasefire deal in a first step toward ending an enduring conflict that claimed 300 lives over the past week alone, mediators said on Friday.
"We'll get a ceasefire tomorrow and all the parties will sit together. We are making very good progress," leading mediator Mohamed Ibn Chambas told reporters at peace talks in Ghana's lakeside resort of Akosombo.
Rebels and representatives of President Charles Taylor, a former warlord now indicted by a UN-backed court for war crimes, have been locked in on-off talks for days.
The talks are designed to prevent a bloody showdown in the capital Monrovia where fighting claimed at least 300 lives after rebels launched a major offensive last week.
Liberia's Health Minister Peter Coleman told reporters that at least 300 people and possibly as many as 400 had been killed. He said that 150 bodies had been found in the New Kroo Town district alone, the scene of heavy fighting.
The stakes are also high for West Africa. Liberia's seemingly endless cycle of violence has poisoned the region for more than a decade, creating a generation of battle-hardened fighters with little respect for life and a hunger for loot.
The rebels want Taylor to resign. In what his aides call a major concession, Taylor has agreed to step aside if it will bring peace, but he also wants the indictment lifted.
A proper, enduring truce would offer succour to Liberia's people who have endured 14 years of almost non-stop war in a country founded as a haven of liberty for freed American slaves.
Mediators hope the ceasefire will pave the way for talks on a transitional government and the deployment of peacekeepers.
But the question of Taylor's future has yet to be resolved and has been complicated by the indictment for his role in Sierra Leone's civil war, during which fighters deliberately hacked off the limbs of thousands of civilians.
Taylor was elected in 1997 after winning a civil war that cost 200,000 lives.
The indictment, the rebel offensive and an alleged coup came within days of each other last week and mark the most serious challenge to his rule.
The peace talks floundered after the indictment was announced but were given extra urgency after rebels struck within 5km of Monrovia's heart earlier this week. The insurgents have since been pushed outside city limits.
LURD and another rebel group known as Model now hold two-thirds of Liberia.
The recent fighting around Monrovia sent hundreds of thousands of panicked people fleeing into the city, where food and water are scarce and the risk of disease rife.
Residents in Monrovia timidly began to return to bullet-scarred suburbs on Friday after both sides agreed a cessation of hostilities to give the peace talks a chance.
Soldiers said light arms fire rang out in one suburb for an hour overnight as stray rebels were hunted down, but generally across the city life was returning to normal on Friday.
Some shops in Monrovia were open and taxis took to the streets. Taylor's wife Jewel supervised the distribution of rice to around 25,000 hungry homeless seeking refuge on the muddy morass of the city's football stadium.
"You know what this is? These are white diamonds," said a man clutching a bag of rice. "Everyone is looking for these."
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