By IPS Correspondents
MONROVIA, Jul 2 2003 (IPS)

Three days of bloodletting in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia – the second in 10 days – left "tragic humanitarian consequences with people still suffering and dying of hunger, starvation and a multitude of diseases," says health minister Peter Coleman.

"The situation is too desperate," says Coleman, pleading for an urgent humanitarian intervention.

Health workers speak of an acute shortage of drugs and medical facilities owing to widespread looting that followed the street violence between forces of President Charles Taylor and the main rebel movement, Liberia United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD).

"Hundreds of wounded survivors do not have access to medicine and health facilities as the few existing health centres are overstressed," says a health worker in Monrovia.

Poverty-stricken patients, especially elderly men and women are being carted away in wheelbarrows to seek first aid treatment at pharmaceutical houses that have survived looting.

The fighting left in its wake "unbearable hardship on the population", says a civil servant. There were widespread looting in the city, affecting relief items and office equipment. Prices of essential goods and services have quadrupled and many residents are unable to afford the cost of a meal. "We have not eaten a fitting meal for the last three days," says an elderly woman of 12 children and dependents.

The city is relatively calm now and people are trying to rebuild some kind of normal life. But banks and few shops remain closed for security reason.

The latest upsurge of fighting – blamed on the absence of an international military intervention force to police the ceasefire that was declared in the first five-day street fighting – was concentrated in the port areas in the capital’s western suburbs.

LURD rebels insist on Taylor’s resignation, but the Liberian leader says he will end his term in Jan. The rebels entered the southeastern outskirts of the city relatively easily at dawn on Jun. 22. They overran the port areas, but failed to take the city.

Rebel leader Sekou Damate Konneh attributed the attack to government offences on LURD’s positions in the west and north of the country, despite the ceasefire signed in Ghana on Jun. 17.

Witnesses said the rebels used the commercial districts of Duala and the fishing enclave of New Krutown, Monrovia’s western suburbs, as their command post. "These areas were firmly under the control of the rebels who even moved across the city’s two main strategic bridges on the edge of the city," says Solomon Feika, a resident of Duala.

Streams of civilians, including an estimated 15,000 Sierra Leone refugees, ran into the already overcrowded city centre as missiles, heavy bombardment and artillery fire rained and echoed across the city.

The intensity of the fighting prompted West African mediators at the Liberian peace talks in Ghana to suspend the talks for one week. The talks are scheduled to resume later this week.

Coleman says some 300 people died of bullet, bayonet and rocket wounds, but independent accounts put the figures far higher. "Many families and loved ones hurriedly buried their dead behind the houses and swampy areas without necessarily reporting casualty figures to authorities," Winston Mulbah, a middle-aged man, who lost his son and daughter in a rocket blast near the U.S. embassy compound, told IPS this week.

Angry crowds of displaced at the embassy’s Gray Stone compound – once known as a safe heaven in time of war – paraded dead children to the gates of the embassy on Jun. 23 in demand of U.S. military intervention in Liberia.

U.S. President George W. Bush, slated to visit Africa Jul. 7-12, responded by demanding Taylor’s immediate resignation to avoid the bloodbath. Bush said his government supported peace talks between Liberian factions. But he did not promise American military intervention.

Like Taylor, British and French officials have asked America to lead a force to Liberia, which was founded in 1847 as a colony for freed American slaves.

American warships anchored on the Liberia waters in 1990 when the country was in flames but did not intervene. They are there again with the marines keeping vigil at the U.S. embassy in Monrovia.

Taylor’s indictment by the special court in Sierra Leone seems to be fueling the conflict in Liberia. He has asked that the indictment be dropped to ensure peace. But the court’s prosecutor, David Craine, said "there is no deal for an indicted war crime suspect". If an international force will be sent to Liberia, it remains unclear whether that force will have the mandate to arrest Taylor in return for his indictment in Sierra Leone.

Perhaps sensing the mood in Monrovia, the rebels declared a unilateral ceasefire on Jun. 27 to avoid what they called a "humanitarian catastrophe". They then pulled back their forces to Bomi Hills in western Liberia.

As they were retreating, their military adviser, Joe Willie, said: "We warn Taylor to stop firing at us. We are ready right now to stop fighting. But we reserve the right to fight back if fired upon".

But military analysts believe the fighting will likely resume if an international military force is not deployed to Liberia to separate the warring factions. They say the rebels have simply retreated to regroup.

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