Fighting in Liberia Capital Ebbs, but Gunfire Reported Near U.S. Embassy

Sporadic gunfire was reported Wednesday around the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia, a day after heavy fighting in the seaside district interrupted a brief lull in Liberia’s civil war.

Meanwhile, about 1,850 refugees from an overcrowded freighter that docked in neighboring Ghana after 10 days at sea were receiving aid and medical care Wednesday in the port of Takoradi. Earlier reports that 3,000 to 4,000 refugees were crowded on board the ship proved to be untrue.

The U.N. World Food Program said it moved about 10 tons of food from Accra, Ghana’s capital, to Takoradi, enough to feed the refugees for four months. The refugees included 1,559 Liberians and 26 Nigerian peacekeepers, according to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

The fighting that rocked Monrovia on Tuesday was not nearly as bad Wednesday, with reports of sporadic gunfire around the U.S. Embassy in the Mamba Point district of the Liberian capital.

The latest gun battles were started by fighters loyal to warlord Charles Taylor, who on Sunday had announced that he would begin withdrawing his supporters.

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Taylor’s men instead gathered in front of the Mamba Point Hotel in the diplomatic district near the U.S. Embassy and fanned across the Liberian capital in a fierce assault on fighters loyal to Roosevelt Johnson, Taylor’s bitter enemy.

Johnson’s fighters appeared to have the upper hand hours afterward, with some of Taylor’s men seeking refuge in the U.S. Embassy compound.

In Ghana, hundreds of exhausted Liberian refugees poured down the gangplank of the rusty Nigerian freighter Bulk Challenge after it found a place to dock Tuesday in Takoradi.

The refugees told harrowing tales of crewmen who sold donated aid food packets at inflated prices to near-starving people on board.

At least two people aboard the freighter died during the voyage.