Hundreds Wounded in Liberia Civil War

Shells and rockets pounded Liberia’s capital on Wednesday as rebels pressed their three-year war to oust President Charles Taylor, wounding hundreds and leaving thousands of others cowering in the city without escape.

With rebels on three sides of the city and the Atlantic surf pounding the other, Taylor took to the airwaves and pledged to live or die with his troops.

The U.S. Embassy opened the gates of its residential compound to Liberians seeking shelter, and thousands crowded in -- hoping proximity to the Americans would mean safety. But hours later, three pieces of ordnance landed in the walled compound and exploded, sending those taking refuge there running. Survivors evacuated bleeding victims, some missing limbs, using a wheelbarrow and bloodstained shirts as stretchers.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Brooke Summers said a guard and a gardener employed by the embassy were killed. There was no indication that any U.S. citizens died. The last Americans had recently been moved out of the residential complex to the heavily guarded U.S. Embassy across the street.

“Everybody in the world is sitting to watch us die,” a refugee, Suah Kolli, cried at Monrovia’s John F. Kennedy hospital, where 200 wounded brought in by midday overflowed the wards and lay sprawled, moaning and bleeding in slippery hallways.

Britain called on the U.S. to intervene and enforce a cease-fire. “The United States ... is the nation that everybody would think would be the natural candidate for such an operation,” Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Jeremy Greenstock, said. “I understand that there is some discussion going on in Washington of the pros and cons.”

A U.S. official said Washington was studying the situation.