Soldiers’ Families Flee Liberia Capital : Rebellion: Crime, food shortages and an impending attack plague city.

Wives and children of Liberian soldiers fled Monrovia on Sunday, and residents complained of food shortages and rising crime as this increasingly edgy city braced for an expected rebel attack aimed at overthrowing President Samuel K. Doe.

Hundreds of women and children jammed a small airfield inside the city hoping to find space aboard two military transport aircraft and a handful of commercial planes leaving the besieged capital.

Members of the Krahn tribe, which supports Doe, fear harsh reprisals from the rebels, made up mainly of people from the Gio and Mano tribes. The six-month-old rebellion in this West African country has turned into a grisly tribal war marked by atrocities against civilians by both sides.

Many of the people fleeing by air or in overloaded trucks were families of Doe’s elite Krahn-dominated troops who were guarding the president’s mansion on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Rebels led by Charles McArthur Taylor, a former Doe government official who fled the country in 1983 to escape fraud charges, have moved a force of up to 3,500 rebels to within 30 miles of the capital, diplomats and analysts said.

Some diplomats believe Taylor may have infiltrated armed rebels into the capital, a city of 500,000 which is loosely guarded by government soldiers, many of whom have not been paid or fed and are deserting at a fast rate.

The city was unusually quiet Sunday, with many people staying home from church in a deeply religious country.

Residents said food was in short supply and prices for staples like rice had doubled or quadrupled. They also reported an increase in incidents of harassment and theft.

“It’s hard to go places because of harassment on the streets and people taking your property,” said a 21-year-old American-Liberian woman.