World IN BRIEF : LIBERIA : 60 African Peacekeepers Reported Killed by Rebels

More than 60 soldiers of the Liberia peacekeeping force died during battles with guerrillas in the town of Tubmanburg last week, residents said. “This place was covered with so many ECOMOG bodies,” resident Annita Dolleh told reporters taken to the town Tuesday by United Nations officers and members of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group. The town had been cut off since New Year’s Day. ECOMOG had said that seven soldiers of the force, dominated by Nigerians but including Ghanaian and Guinean soldiers, died in the clashes. The fighting threatened an accord to end years of civil war in Liberia and ECOMOG’s plans to start disarming 60,000 guerrillas next week. About 150,000 people have died in the war, the U.N. says.