Supplies rushed to Liberia
2003-08-16 22:13
Monrovia - Boats and planes landed some of the first shipments of desperately needed international aid for Liberia's capital on Saturday, while fighting persisted in the interior despite peace talks, blocking all hope of immediate help for the millions trapped there.
US marines in gun-mounted rubber-walled boats plied Monrovia's port on Saturday, navigating among sunken vessels as a second relief ship docked following Thursday's lifting of 70 days of sieges by Liberia's rebels.
Hungry still, about 500 civilians gathered to stare at the gates of the port, hoping for some of the food trickling in there. Thousands of others coursed across the newly opened bridge connecting famished government-held areas to the markets of the former rebel-held territory around the port.
"We're still starving, dying of hunger. We're hoping to work for food," said Joseph Sahn, 29. "I'm completely broke. Nothing in my pockets," he said, shaking the sides of his tattered trousers.
Rebels formally ceded control of the port on Thursday to West African peace troops backed by US marines, ending a siege that had killed hundreds outright and left residents in government-held with little to eat but flower leaves and snails.
Ending of the siege followed Taylor's resignation on Monday, under US, West African and rebel pressure.
Humanitarian workers are returning to the city after largely vacating Monrovia during the siege, and the first aid ship docked on Friday. Aid workers distributed small amounts of aid on Saturday, handing out sacks of cornmeal to families at a church and elsewhere in the city.
World Food Programme workers said they had found at least about 3 000 tons of their food stores intact, of about 10 000 tons that had been stockpiled at the port, heavily looted during the fighting.
At the airport, planes landed food and other aid, including a shipment from the UN Children's Fund of high-energy biscuits, milk for malnourished children and other items all together worth $500 000, spokesperson Margherita Amodeo said.
Pallets of aid lay on the tarmac, with workers preparing them for shipment into the city, but Amodeo said much more is needed - and that it would be some time before aid workers can travel out of Monrovia to reach 1 million to 2 million needy in Liberia's interior, where fighting continues between rebels and fighters of the embattled government.
"We can only reach a small part of the population and in this area, the needs are very high," said Amodeo. "We need to bring in as much as possible."
More peacekeepers
Elsewhere at the airport, two UN planes unloaded about 110 Nigerian peacekeeping soldiers - bringing the force to nearly 1 000 of a planned 3 250-strong initial deployment of West African soldiers.
About 200 US marines are billeted at the airport to back up the force, if needed.
At the seaport, a second UN-marked boat landed overnight carrying soap, blankets, plastic sheeting, cutlery and jerrycans for water.
A handful of marines patrolled the port on Saturday while US military helicopters buzzed overhead. Nearly 2 000 marines are aboard three warships off the coast.
"We've received nothing but a positive reaction," said Captain Michael Charney of Elmhurst, Illinois, one of those patrolling. "People smile and wave and yell, 'Hi, Marine."'
Fighting continues
Guns have been largely silent in Monrovia since the Nigerian peacekeepers' arrival in the city nearly two weeks ago. Fighting has continued in the countryside - even as negotiators grind toward a final peace deal in Accra, Ghana.
Mediators had hoped to sign the power-sharing pact on Saturday, but said the leading rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, was demanding the speaker of the house post and control of the ministries of defence and foreign affairs.
The two main rebel groups and the government previously had agreed to stay out of top posts in the power-sharing administration, meant to govern Liberia for two years during elections.
On Saturday, rebel and government forces battled near Gbargna in central Liberia and in the northern and eastern borderlands with Guinea and Ivory Coast, said top Liberian General Benjamin Yeaten.
"I think the peacekeepers should move in quickly to arrest the situation," Yeaten told The Associated Press.
The chief of staff of the peace force, Colonel Theophilus Tawiah of Ghana, said he would contact rebel leaders for confirmation of a violation of an all-but ignored June 17 cease fire agreement.
In Monrovia, teenaged rebel fighters roamed the road outside the port, grabbing at least two young men they suspected to be government fighters.
They stripped and beat both men, tossing them into the back of a pickup truck. Peacekeepers rescued both men, one at a checkpoint, the other when he dashed from his captors into the port. Peacekeepers slammed the gate behind him.
Refugee camp
At the College of West Africa refugee camp, resident clamored to be fed, saying only 1 000 of 3 816 had received food during Friday's first aid disbursement in weeks: corn meal, which they ate plain.
Babies at the defunct university played in glass - blown out of windows by 11 mortar rounds that landed in the grounds.
"For now, we're severely traumatised and we need the international community to help us," said the camp's 36-year old administrator, George Ville.
"The United Nations needs to take over the country, because all we know is war. If they don't, then we see more kills in the future."
Taylor launched Liberia into 14 years of conflict in 1989, when he led a small insurgent group bent on toppling then President Samuel Doe.
Taylor left Mon onday for the southern Nigerian town of Calabar, still evading an international arrest warrant by a
UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone for aiding that country's brutal rebels, known for chopping off the limbs of civilians.
In Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah said on national radio that his government "would go after the money" and sue for compensation for the impoverished from Taylor's frozen Swiss account, which Kabbah estimated at $3bn.
- AP