Shelling kills 15 people sheltering in church

A mortar round crashed into a church crowded with hundreds of refugees near Monrovia’s embattled port today, killing at least 15 civilians, including whole families, who were taking shelter inside.

It was the second time in two days that shells have hit buildings filled with refugees in Liberia’s capital, under siege by rebels in a now week-old offensive to take Monrovia and topple President Charles Taylor.

The Greater Refuge Church, on a hill overlooking the Monrovia’s rebel-held port and the heavily contested bridges leading from it, had taken in hundreds of refugees from outside the capital since rebels began their latest push for the capital in June.

Fighting raged at the port overnight, and witnesses said five shells slammed into the ground around the church at about 4am.

A sixth hit the church building directly, exploding among the refugees bedded down for the night.

Neighbours, contacted by telephone after daybreak, counted 15 bodies laid out in front of the church, surrounded by wailing survivors.

The dead included a husband, wife and children of at least one entire family.

Residents were getting ready to haul the dead down the hill, where a mass grave was being dug.

Hospital workers said they still were taking in wounded from the barrage, but could provide no immediate tally.

“People are still crying. Rockets have been falling all around us,” said Kate Wright, a neighbour of the church reached by telephone.

A mortar round exploded nearby as she talked, and Wright said she could hear heavy gunfire from battles at the bridges.

Wright said the mortar rounds were coming from the rebel-held port.

Both sides in Liberia have accused each other for the mortar bombardments that have repeatedly exploded in densely populated neighbourhoods of Monrovia, a city of 1 million that is crowded now with hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Rebels are driving home their 3-year campaign to oust Taylor, a former warlord behind 14 years of near perpetual conflict in the West African country.

The rebels, many of them ex-combatants of a 1989-96 civil war launched by Taylor, are allegedly backed by neighbouring countries that see Taylor as a source of regional instability.

The battle for Monrovia has focused on the port and three bridges leading to downtown, one of Taylor’s last strongholds.

On Friday, shells pounded a neighbourhood around Monrovia’s US Embassy, hitting homes and a school filled with refugees.

That attack killed at least 26, and wounded at least 200 people.

Monrovia’s residents call the three devastating rebel attacks on the capital since June World War I, World War II, and World War III.

The repeated civilian carnage has played out as international leaders debated for weeks over a multinational peace force for Liberia.

After Friday’s bloodshed, residents reacted with scepticism, even bitterness, at news that US President George W Bush had ordered American troops to Liberia’s coast for some unspecified, limited role in a peace mission.

“We gave our lives for Americans before,” Wright said, referring to the freed American slaves who founded Liberia in 1847.

“We expected Americans to do the same for us...but it took a long time for America to come to our aid. It shouldn’t be that way,” Wright said.

“You see, everybody looking to George W Bush,” said Bill Jacobs, speaking in the war-ruined, congested streets of Monrovia. “But I think it’s only God can solve our problem right now,” Jacobs said.

Bush has demanded that Taylor cede power as part of any peace deal for Liberia.

Taylor, indicted by a UN war-crimes court for his support of rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone, has repeatedly promised to step aside, only to later hedge on timing or renege entirely.

On Saturday, the Liberian leader was to address an evangelical meeting in Monrovia’s sports stadium, now packed with tens of thousands of refugees. Some of those involved in planning the event suggested that Taylor might use the occasion to hand power to an associate – perhaps Liberia’s speaker of the house.

Nigeria has offered Taylor exile if he steps down.

Spiritual leaders in heavily Christian Liberia called a day of fasting for the rally in Monrovia.

Cut-off by the fighting, the city already is running out of food and water, and refugees in the stadium are wracked by hunger and by cholera.