West African troops and food aid eventually arrive to beleaguered Monrovia citizens
The arrival of the first troops, although still unseen in the city, brought a dramatic easing of two week's of gunbattles in the city.
With guns stilled, three rebels at the fiercely contested New Bridge briefly crossed over from the insurgent-held port, shaking hands with nonplussed government fighters before returning to the other side.
"Our brothers on the other side are clearly tired of fighting. Just like our men here", said Prince Hilton, a 27-year-old internet technician and one of a crowd who watched the scene, from a safe distance, on the government side.
Workers with Medicins sans Frontiere also made a foray from one zone to the other.
Waving a flag with their agency's logo, they crossed the no-man's-land of the bridge from rebel territory to bring out on a stretcher a 24-year-old Indian businessman who had been shot and wounded during looting of his business, near the port, three days earlier.
At nearby Old Bridge, the scene was like a school party except one redolent with marijuana, and bristling with arms.
Government fighters many of them 10 or 12-year-old boys, barely bigger than their assault rifles waved at rebels on the other side, smoked marijuana, and horse-played among themselves.
Few of the boy fighters dared even to set foot on the bridge itself, its surface carpeted with bullet casings from the battles here.
"You tell your people we are ready for peace but if they don't give us money, we don't give up our guns," said one older fighter, a 27-year-old government second lieutenant going by the battle name of Victor Fire.
At Monrovia's airport, white UN helicopters shuttled in with more Nigerian troops, landing them 20 at a time as the 3,250 strong West African peace mission began building up.
Jumping out in formation with machineguns ready, the new arrivals joined other Nigerian troops already setting up temporary bases, standing guard, and walking foot patrols at the airport.
In Monrovia, the break in fighting brought hungry families out to scour neighbourhoods for food only to find little. Normally crowded markets were reduced to piles of potato leaves and chilli peppers, with rice in recent days selling for 60p a cup nowhere to be found. Petrol hit £18 a gallon, when it could be found.
Nigerian force commanders said they would deploy to the capital, opening up aid routes, only when sufficient troops and armoured vehicles arrive.
"The moment peacekeepers get there, they will cease fire," said Lieutenant Colonel Sam Nudamajo.
"My message to the people of Monrovia is to cool down," Nudamajo said. "We are ready to assist them. I believe that even the warring factions will want to embrace peace and dialogue," he said.
Under pressure from fellow west African leaders and Washington, Liberian warlord turned President Charles Taylor has agreed to cede power on August 11.
He is blamed in nearly 14 years of civil war in Liberia that has killed more than 100,000 people, and accused of gun and diamond trafficking that have fuelled conflicts in west Africa.
