Refugees under shell fire as rebel armies enter Monrovia

SHELLS exploded in refugee-crowded neighbourhoods of Liberia’s capital yesterday, sending thousands of civilians fleeing as President Charles Taylor’s forces battled rebels pressing hard into Monrovia.

Fighting shattered a week-old truce and raised prospects of the deadliest possible end to Liberia’s three-year-old insurgency: an all-out battle among undisciplined armies for the city of one million, now packed with hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Battles on Tuesday night and yesterday appeared to mark the fiercest combat yet in the city. They were also the first time Taylor’s forces and rebels battled virtually through the night.

“This blatant act of terror will be fought all the way,” Taylor declared on his private radio station yesterday, denying, as artillery boomed, that he had fled the city. “My life is no more important than yours. I am here with the men and women in arms, encouraging them to fight on, because my survival is their survival, and their survival is mine.”

Fighting was reported to be concentrated at the city’s port, on the west side. The Red Cross put out appeals over the radio for blood for the injured at Monrovia’s hospital, but shells slamming into the city made it almost impossible to venture out.Taylor’s forces have lost at least 60% of the country to two rebel groups, each determined to drive out Taylor, a UN-indicted war-crimes suspect accused of roiling West Africa’s conflicts for 14 years.

Rebels pushed across Monrovia’s St Paul’s river bridge late on Tuesday, breaching the capital for the second time in a month. The attack comes with the seaside capital filled to bursting, with school yards, shelled buildings and the Liberia’s national soccer stadium packed with tens of thousands of refugees. Taylor’s forces moved through the city, but described some neighbourhoods as no-go areas.

In Washington, the State Department expressed concern over the renewed fighting in Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century.

“The United States condemns all violations of the cease-fire and calls upon all combatants to stop fighting immediately,” said spokesman Richard Boucher.