Weekend of fighting threatens Liberia’s fragile peace

LIBERIA’S week-old peace deal appeared under growing pressure yesterday after a weekend of ceasefire violations and an unconfirmed radio report of a massacre of 1,000 people in the remote and lawless Nimba County.

The reports of fighting also underlined the need for West African peacekeepers to spread out from the capital Monrovia.

US helicopters flew reconnaissance flights on Sunday, ahead of the peacekeepers’ deployment toward the rebel-held second city Buchanan, to secure an area where weekend gunfire triggered an exodus of terrified civilians.