Shelling, Gun Fire Hits Liberian Capital

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Shelling, Gun Fire Hits Liberian Capital

Shells pounded Liberia's capital Tuesday and explosions and machine-gun fire echoed in what President Charles Taylor's forces said was a renewed rebel drive into Monrovia.

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Shells pounded Liberia's capital Tuesday and explosions and machine-gun fire echoed in what President Charles Taylor's forces said was a renewed rebel drive into Monrovia.

Fighting came despite a week-old cease-fire in Liberia's insurgency, which in the past month increasingly has seen the seige tighten on the capital of 1 million, now filled to bursting with refugees from fighting elsewhere in the West African nation.

Defense officials said insurgents had crossed the St. Paul's river bridge into the western outskirts of the city.

Fighting sent families rushing to the center of town for safety, streaming into neighborhoods where schools, stadiums and other buildings already were packed with refugees.

Deputy Defense Minister Austin Clark said shells had landed in a western neighborhood just outside the heart of Monrovia. Clark claimed the artillery had hit groups of fleeing civilians.

"People were torn to pieces," Clark said.

Women and children were still fleeing as night fell, mattresses on their heads and babies at the back, under a steady drizzle.

Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century, has seen increasing pushes by West African leaders, the United Nations, United States and European Union to calm fighting.

The U.S. State Department expressed concern over the renewed fighting.

Rebels and government officials alike on Tuesday accused each other of days of violations of the cease-fire, the first in Liberia's fast-escalating three-year rebel drive to topple Taylor.

The rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy announced Monday that it was pulling out of the peace talks being held in the fellow West African nation.

Rebels accused West African mediators of not holding Taylor to his pledge to cede power as part of the June 17 cease-fire accord. The accord called for talks leading to a transition government, without Taylor.

Taylor won Liberia's presidency at the end of the country's devastating 1989-1996 civil war, which Taylor had launched, leading a small force into Liberia to topple the then-government.

Source: Agencies

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