Liberia's nightmare continues as thousands flee

CIVILIANS fleeing by the thousands appealed yesterday for rescue, as a first trip into the countryside showed Liberia's nightmare was far from over with families clutching bone-thin babies speaking of nightly gunfire and barrages despite a week-old peace deal.

Exhausted refugees streamed south, or crowded by the thousands into dirt yards, schools and churches in and around the last government-held town, Zensu, on a road linking the rebel-held north to Monrovia.

With a still-building West African peace force yet to venture into the interior, families ran out, screaming for help, at the sight of some of the first civilian vehicles from the south.

"We're suffering. Our children are dying," shouted Fatu Leonfay, 42. "We're dropping them on the road."

Ms Leonfay, and others, pleaded for peacekeepers. "If they don't come, we'll die," she cried.

A nearly month-old West African peace mission has calmed Monrovia, where rebels lifted 2 1/2 months of siege after forcing out warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor on August 11. Reports of fighting persist in the north-east, south-east and centre.

Almost all of it is thought small-scale, with militias or individual fighters scrambling to get last bits of territory and spoils ahead of the peacekeepers' push into the interior.

"There's no actual peace yet," said refugee Suanie Bestman, 27, emerging from hiding in the bush. "Only in Monrovia are people living a peaceful life."

Aid workers in Kakata, a few miles closer to the capital, tended for the columns of people on the move.

"We are in a mess," Red Cross worker Joroline Edwards said, calling on West African peace forces to intervene.