Internally displaced Liberians wait for a meal of corn, sugar and supplement mix, issued by the World Food Programme, at the Masonic Temple in Monrovia AT least two people were reported dead after gunmen opened fire near a motorcade carrying Liberia’s rebel leader into the capital Monrovia for the first time yesterday.

Liberian authorities have agreed to pull government forces from a main road connecting the newly calm capital Monrovia with the country’s volatile interior, paving the way for African peacekeepers’ first countryside deployment a day later, the defence minister said today.

Liberian rebels locked in peace talks have said a power-sharing deal could be signed as early as today.