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Monrovia calm for first time in 11 daysLack of water, medicine raises fears of humanitarian crisis
(CNN) -- The Liberian capital had its quietest night in the past 11 days Tuesday, with only occasional and isolated bursts of gunfire piercing the calm. Earlier in the day, rebels continued to battle government forces at the edges of Monrovia's port, but fighting quieted as night fell. The humanitarian situation remains desperate due in part to the lack of drinking water for the past eight days. Hospitals are overstretched, as are their workers, and no medicine is available. It is impossible for any aid worker to venture through the front lines, observers said. A Nigerian peacekeeping force was due to arrive in Monrovia as soon as Wednesday to head a larger planned deployment of troops from the Economic Community of West African States. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday that it was "absolutely essential" to accelerate the movement of peacekeepers. He said he was "deeply concerned at the dramatic deterioration of the situation" in the West African nation. Magnus Wolfe-Murray of Medical Emergency Relief International told CNN the peacekeepers would be a welcome sight for Monrovians. "As soon as they get in place, one hopes the fighting around the city will stop and we'll be able to get freer and better access to the people we haven't been able to reach for over a week now," he said. "There are hundreds of thousands of people who haven't had any food in over a week." Wolfe-Murray said aid workers have been able to reach people in areas controlled by government forces, but they were "most concerned about people on the other side of the fighting." Cholera has probably already killed many Liberians because workers were unable to reach them, he said. In government-controlled areas in Monrovia, he said, workers have had considerable success controlling the outbreak. The most recent fighting broke out July 17, more than a month after the rebels and the government of President Charles Taylor signed a cease-fire agreement that included a promise by Taylor to leave the country. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the fighting, the latest episode in a three-year rebellion to oust Taylor. The country has seen almost perpetual war since the 1980s, and an estimated 250,000 Liberians have died. Taylor was indicted in June by a U.N.-back special court on war crimes charges stemming from his participation in the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. Taylor has agreed to step down and accept exile in Nigeria but has said he would not leave until peacekeepers arrive.
The United States has pledged to aid the deployment of ECOWAS peacekeepers, but not until the fighting has ended. Washington has dispatched three U.S. warships to Liberia carrying some 2,200 Marines in what is seen as a supportive gesture, though there is so far no indication the Pentagon intends to commit U.S. troops. Liberians have been pleading for the United States to intervene to stop the bloodshed, but so far the Bush administration has promised only logistical aid. On Monday, rebels took Liberia's second-largest city of Buchanan, forcing thousands of residents to flee the city, which had been the last major port in government hands, the government said. Fighting erupted there earlier in the day, broadening the battle between government troops and rebels, which had so far been fighting in and around the capital. The government said it was preparing a counterattack in Buchanan, about 70 miles [112 kilometers] southeast of Monrovia. The rebel faction fighting in Buchanan is called Model, or Movement for Democracy in Liberia. It is politically linked but ethnically separate from the main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD, which is fighting in Monrovia. Rebels declare cease-fireLURD said Tuesday that it had declared a unilateral cease-fire in Monrovia, Reuters reported. The head of LURD's delegation at peace talks in nearby Ghana said the rebels would withdraw to the city's port area, where they would await planned West African peacekeepers. Liberia's top negotiator in Ghana rejected the cease-fire offer, saying rebel fighters must withdraw from Monrovia altogether, Reuters reported. "Withdrawing to the Freeport just isn't good enough. It's unacceptable," Lewis Brown, Liberia's minister of state for foreign affairs, told Reuters. "[LURD] must release their stranglehold on the city, and that means withdrawing to the positions they held prior to the June 17 cease-fire agreement." It was LURD's fourth declared truce since the June cease-fire agreement with Taylor's forces. Journalist Ledgerhood Rennie of Radio Veritas contributed to this report.
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