Liberians Flee as Factional Fighting Continues

Clouds of dark smoke billowed over this city Sunday as 2,500 Liberian refugees stood on the deck of a freighter, sadly singing a patriotic hymn and waving farewell as the ship inched away from the burning capital.

Back on the streets, Monrovia was consumed by violence. Young fighters set dozens of homes and buildings on fire Sunday. Rocket-propelled grenades slammed into Monrovia’s besieged military barracks, the flash point of a month of bloodshed that has ruined the city and killed hundreds of residents.

At the port, hundreds of Liberians desperately tried to climb up the sides of the Nigerian freighter Bulk Challenge as it chugged out to sea. Fighting erupted among those who had paid $75 for the five-day trip to Ghana but were left behind even after their luggage was packed on the ship.

“It was unbelievable--an exodus. It was pathetic,” said Peter Sebok, the Dutch owner of West Coast Fisheries, whose offices are at the port.

The Liberians who made it aboard sailed away singing “Lone Star Forever,” a national hymn of Africa’s first independent republic, founded by freed American slaves in 1847.

Not far from the port, the two main bridges into the city were being held by rival enemy camps, making it difficult for anyone to move in or out of downtown.

Rebel leader Charles Taylor had vowed that the battle for the military barracks held by his enemies would be won by the weekend. But supporters of his archrival, Roosevelt Johnson, fought fiercely as Taylor’s forces resumed shelling the barracks.

The clashes shattered hopes that Johnson’s evacuation from the country Friday by American troops would spur moves toward ending the violence.

Instead, the fighting became even more brutal.

Hundreds of the 10,000 Liberians who have sought shelter at the U.S. Embassy residential compound stood watching in horror Sunday as five of Taylor’s fighters were executed on a hill below. The five fighters had their throats slit; one had his ears chopped off.

One squad of about 30 fighters--most in flak jackets, some in women’s wigs--were accompanied by a small, naked boy carrying an assault rifle.

African peacekeeping troops, who had retreated up the street, entered the fighting Sunday, shooting and killing two of Taylor’s militiamen who tried to prevent them from crossing a bridge.

Tens of thousands of Liberians fled the city over the weekend, heading for rural areas already plagued by disease and serious shortages of food and medicine.

Taylor, a member of the ruling State Council, has refused to join Johnson in Accra, Ghana, for talks scheduled to begin Wednesday on ending Liberia’s six-year civil war.

Taylor recently aligned his forces with warlord Alhaji Kromah, once a bitter rival. Both men sit on Liberia’s six-man council, which was formed after international mediators in August brokered the country’s 13th peace accord in six years of war.

The council was designed to prepare Liberia for elections by August. Taylor said the council’s civilian chairman, Wilton Sankawulo, will represent Liberia at the peace talks.

Johnson, who had been barricaded in the military barracks since April 6, was hustled out in an armored convoy to the U.S. Embassy on Friday. American helicopters then flew him to neighboring Sierra Leone and on to Accra later that night.

Johnson, a former Cabinet minister, was fired by the government and charged with murder in connection with clashes in March that violated the August peace accord.

His refusal to surrender sparked fighting that quickly spread into citywide looting, shelling and gunfire.

The United States military began evacuating foreigners April 9, and by Saturday about 2,135 people had been flown to neighboring countries.