26 Die as Mortars Strike Liberian School

The bloodiest barrage in days sent shells crashing into the U.S. Embassy grounds and a school packed with refugees in the rebel-besieged capital Friday -- leaving people wondering why a long-awaited U.S. peace deployment was coming only after so high a toll.

President Bush ordered U.S. troops into position off the coast Friday to support the arrival of a West African peacekeeping force. It was unclear whether the Marines would go ashore.

The U.S. announcement was broadcast over the radio here as refugee families gathered broken bodies of men, women and children. All were victims of a daybreak mortar attack that killed at least 26 and wounded more than 200. “Why so late, when people are dying?” Momo Barley asked in the streets around the U.S. Embassy, a densely populated, rocky hilltop neighborhood overlooking the Atlantic that took the brunt of Friday’s 10-minute pounding by up to 20 mortar rounds.

“This is another promise again,” refugee Sylvester Blamo, 30, said in the same neighborhood, as aid workers tended to body bags.

Monrovia’s residents have prayed, even pleaded, for U.S. deployment in the American-founded nation for two months as rebels pressed home their 3-year war to evict Liberia’s warlord-turned-president, Charles Taylor.

A few weeks ago, even false rumors of U.S. Marines landing were enough to set off joyous celebrations, with dancing and singing in the streets.

There was no such immediate outbreak of joy in the numbed city Friday.

Three waves of attacks have killed hundreds in the capital. About 1.3 million residents hang on, gripped by hunger, thirst, epidemics and fear.

“I want to tell George Bush to do something hurriedly, very fast and quickly,” Emmanuel Sieh, 28, cried earlier Friday, as crowds spilled into the streets after a fierce barrage.

Both sides in Liberia’s war have accused the other of shelling the densely populated capital and it was unclear who was behind Friday’s barrage, which continued off and on throughout the day.

Rebel leaders welcomed word of the American deployment, ordering their forces to cooperate with any Americans and to cease-fire. The rebels have repeatedly broken promises for a cease-fire, as have government forces.

“I think that’s what all Liberians want to hear. We applaud that,” rebel official Charles Benney said of the announced American deployment.

One shell Friday struck inside the U.S. Embassy compound, exploding harmlessly on rocky ground, a U.S. official inside said.

Other rounds wrought carnage among refugees, who have crowded around the embassy by the thousands in hope of protection through proximity to the Americans.

At the beginning of the attack, a shell slammed into a yard where two boys stood brushing their teeth, killing both. Blocks away, another shell crashed into the yard of a school where hundreds of people have taken refuge.

The round killed seven refugees outright; an eighth was reported dead at an international aid group’s tent clinic.

At the school, wailing crowds surrounded the dead. Victims’ flip-flops lay in pools of blood. One body, that of a boy in his early teens, lay curled in a corner.

Cradling a 2-week-old baby, a woman sobbed uncontrollably next to a body bag holding the corpse of her sister, the child’s mother.

“What do they want to achieve?” Peter Garwah, 27, cried out, before a new mortar round sent terrified survivors scrambling for cover under schoolhouse tables or pressing, screaming, against classroom walls.

“Innocent people are dying, not soldiers.”