U R G E N T W A R N I N G : Liberia !

[Gunship]

If you have to / must visit Liberia - Think twice ... here is the US Embassey warning ... it is serious !

Liberia (Country threat level - 5): On 22 May 2003, the U.S. Department of State issued the following Travel Warning for Liberia: "This Travel Warning is being issued to recommend that Americans who remain in Liberia should now depart the country due to the further expansion of armed conflicts. This supersedes the March 26, 2003, Travel Warning for Liberia. The Department of State warns U.S. citizens against all travel to Liberia and recommends that any Americans remaining in the country should depart as soon as possible. During the last year, rebels have clashed with government troops in a number of areas, including the counties of Bomi, Bong, Gbarpolu, Grand Cape Mount, Grand Gedeh, Lofa, and Margibi. The current fighting has now expanded to the county of Nimba in northern Liberia and the counties of Maryland and Sinoe in southeastern Liberia. It could expand to other areas without warning. Due to the fighting, principal roads to Sierra Leone and Guinea, and from Monrovia to the western part of the country, are closed. Travel over many other roads has become prohibitively dangerous. There is also a high threat of common crime. The presence of heavily armed government security personnel can constitute a serious danger as well. Military roadblocks throughout the country serve as potential flash points. Furthermore, periodic inflammatory statements in the local media regarding U.S. policies and presence in Liberia could also incite violence against American interests. While travel restrictions placed on U.S. diplomats by the Liberian government have been removed, the general security situation and lack of reliable communications systems in Liberia limit the Embassy's ability to provide assistance to U.S. citizens outside the Monrovia area. In addition, roadblocks established by Liberian government forces could prevent Embassy vehicles, as well as all other non-military vehicles, from traveling into conflict zones, further preventing our Embassy from providing assistance to Americans in a time of crisis. The Department prohibits dependents from accompanying U.S. Government employees to Liberia and has limited the number of personnel assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia. U.S. citizens still in Liberia should be aware of their surroundings at all times and use caution in traveling. Travel anywhere after dark is strongly discouraged. Owing to the potential for violence, U.S. citizens should avoid crowds, political rallies, and street demonstrations. In addition, due to conflicts that periodically arise among security forces, U.S. citizens should avoid any gathering of such forces. Americans should report any threats or suspicious activity to the Embassy in Monrovia and monitor the local media for developments that may affect their safety and security."

[Stonebird]

what a hellhole....the more I hear about that place, the sorrier I feel for the good guys there...guys like Patrick Sando at Spriggs. Guns, next time you're there and if he's still alive and kicking and he's still there, bring him back to SA, we'll find a job for him somewhere here, somehow.

What hands some are dealt with in life, and with what tenacity and courage do they play them out...

[AfricanSkies]

"But who are ye, in rags and rotten shoes,
Ye dirty-bearded, blocking up the way?
We are the pilgrims, master.
And we will always go a little further.
It may be beyond those last blue mountains barred with snow,
or across that angry or that glimmering sea...

We travel not for trafficking alone;
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned!
We seek to know what should not be known
On that golden road to Samarkand"

[Cardinal Puff]

Sheeeeesssshhh, boet!

That can still raise goosebumps. There's a mob in Pomland who have an excerpt on a clocktower at their base. Good blokes, but definitely a bit bosbev*k.

[Gunship]

Except vandemr (time to come and see the real Africa bro ) Please stay clear of the airport as well !



Fighting raged Friday in a northern suburb of the capital of
civil-war divided Liberia, a defense official said, and terrified civilians fled by
the thousands as rebels took control of refugee camps around Monrovia.

Government troops and rebel forces were battling on the Atlantic Ocean beach of a
suburb on the northwestern outskirts of the capital, the defense official said,
speaking on condition he not be identified further. Aid workers in the area reported
hearing heavy fire.

One of the west African nation's two rebel movements has advanced from that direction
in recent days, pressing to take the capital and drive out embattled
warlord-turned-President Charles Taylor - indicted this week on war crimes by an
international tribunal in neighboring Sierra Leone for his involvement in a vicious
10-year war there.

No gunfire could be heard in downtown Monrovia on Friday morning, although shooting
could be heard overnight from another western suburb.

Heavy rains Friday made roads nearly impassable but evidently failed to quail the
offensive. Countless civilians struggled through rising waters to escape fighting.

All seven of Monrovia's camps for internally displaced people are now under the
control of insurgents, World Food Program spokesman Ramin Rafirasme said in Dakar,
Senegal.

An exodus from the camps - between three and five miles to the north and west of
Monrovia, housing about 115,000 people - was gaining momentum Friday, he said.

``People are fleeing in all directions. Loads of people. Thousands or tens of
thousands. We can't quantify them,'' Rafirasme said. ``The situation remains highly
volatile.''

The rebel group Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD, has
battled since 1999 to oust Taylor, who was elected president in 1997 after the end of
a devastating seven-year civil war. Taylor started the war in 1986 with a failed coup
attempt and emerged from the conflict as the country's strongest warlord.

The conflict killed hundreds of thousands in Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century.

Peace negotiations among Taylor's negotiators, LURD, a newly emerged insurgent group
based in the country southeast, and international mediators were expected to take
place Friday in Ghana.

:*

[Gunship]

Americans have just landed with all their kit .. the evacuation of Liberia has just started ...

Stay clear .. :ouch:

[126,7]

Did the yanks bring their own kit, Gunss or are they planning on borrowing your little toy? Sounds like damn rough country up there and you would want all the ammo and firing power you can get your hands on.

[Gunship]

As I open this thread (2055 Local time ) GMT - "they" called : "are you ready? Can we use you " .. :uhoh:

Life is so predicatable sometimes - thanks 126,7 .. :E

[Gunship]

One C-17. But arrived with no choppers. ICI is here .. 2 x Mi-8 MTV's but they will need back up.

We all know what happened before during Embassey evacuations ... :uhoh:

[Gunship]

There was a lull in fighting
between Liberian government and rebel forces on the
western outskirts of the capital Monrovia on Sunday
morning, but the city remained tense and residents
reported that goverment fighters were looting
abandoned houses and taking mobile phones and cars
away from civilians.

Government officials said forces loyal to President
Charles Taylor had beaten back rebel forces attacking
Monrovia from the northwest as far as Brewersville, a
suburb eight km from the city centre where most of the
camps housing people displaced by the civil war are
situated.

Most of the 200,000 residents of these camps have
flooded into the city centre during the past three
days of heavy fighting to seek safety. The government
has ordered them to regroup at the Samuel Doe sports
stadium in the east of Monrovia, saying they would
receive shelter and a distribution of emergency food
rations there.

About 200 had gathered at the stadium by Sunday
morning.

Taylor said in a radio broadcast on Sunday that it was
safe for residents to return to the western suburbs of
New Kru Town, Brewersville and Caldwell, which had
been recaptured by government forces.

However several people venturing back to these areas
told IRIN there had been "massive looting" of homes
by government fighters, despite a warning by Taylor
that he would deal "drastically" with any members of
his security forces caught stealing. Other residents
of Monrovia reported that government fighters had
forced them to give up their mobile phones and cars.

Taylor said people should resume normal business. He
urged taxis and buses to start plying the streets
again, repeating a guarantee given by Transport
Minister Joe Muldah on Saturday night that they could
operate safely.

However few shops dared to open and there were very
few civilian vehicles in the streets.

Taylor said his security forces had taken prisoner an
unspecified number of fighters of the Liberians United
for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel
movement, which has led the assault on the capital. He
gave no details of how many had been killed or wounded
in the clashes.

Despite the fighting, Robertsfield airport, to the
east of the city remained open. Several members of the
Lebanese community, which controls most business
activity in Monrovia, departed on a charter flight to
Sierra Leone on Saturday. More were waiting to depart
on planes expected from Nigeria and Ghana on Sunday

Taylor said on Wednesday he was ready to step down if
this would help end 14 years of almost continuous
civil war in Liberia. He made the announcement at the
start of peace talks and Ghana as rebel forces came
closer than ever before to Monrovia and a court in
Sierra Leone issued an international warrant for his
arrest for war crimes in view of his alleged role in
fuelling that country's 10-year civil war.

But Taylor hardened his position on Saturday night,
saying in a radio interview that he would not be
forced out of power before the end of his current six
year-term. According to the consitution this should
end on August 2, the sixth anniversary of his
inauguration after elections in 1997. However, Taylor
has announced presidential elections for October 14
with the declared aim of extending his present mandate
until January 6 2004.

Government officials said Taylor, who plunged Liberia
into its current cycle of violence when he launched a
rebellion against former President Samuel Doe in 1989,
is expected to dismiss his present ministerial team at
a cabinet meeting on Monday to pave the way for
forming a new government of national unity.

However, LURD and a second rebel faction, the Movement
for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), have both said they
will not discuss peace so long as Taylor remains head
of state.

Diplomats say LURD, which controls much of northern
Liberia, is heavily backed by Guinea. They say MODEL,
which has seized control southeastern Liberia since it
appeared on the scene three months ago, is strongly
supported by Cote d'Ivoire.

LURD has sent a delegation to the stalled peace talks
in the Ghanaian town of Akosombo, but MODEL has yet to
do so.

[Gunship]

The bodies of people killed in recent fighting littered the
streets of Monrovia's western suburbs on Sunday night as heavy fighting resumed
between forces loyal to President Charles Taylor and rebels trying to punch their way
into the capital.

An IRIN correspondent counted 113 dead bodies lying in the main avenue that leads
north from Monrovia Freeport towards the western outskirts of the city where the
crackle of automatic rifle fire and the thump of mortars resumed on Sunday evening
after a lull in fighting earlier in the day.

The government said on Sunday it had captured 80 fighters of Liberians United for
Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement as it retook some suburbs that had
been briefly occupied by the rebels. Civilians returning to these areas reported that
many homes had been systematically looted by Taylor's troops. Many residents of the
capital also complained that government soldiers and militiamen had taken their cars
and mobile phones.

Military commanders told IRIN on Sunday night as the battle for Monrovia recommenced
that LURD fighters who had been pushed out of the suburbs of Duala, Caldwell and
Twelve Farm were fighting to regain lost ground.

The government meanwhile appealed to all available medical staff to report urgently
to the John F Kennedy hospital, the main hospital in Monrovia to treat civilians
wounded in the conflict.

The authorities were also trying to regroup tens of thousands of displaced people who
had fled camps on the western outskirts of the Monrovia to escape the rebel advance
in the Samuel Doe national sports stadium in the east end of the city, which remains
relatively people.

Relief workers said nearly 2,000 had gathered there by Sunday afternoon and 3,000 had
sought refuge in a school. But with most foreign aid workers and other expatriates
making their way to the EU mission and the US embassy in preparation for evacuation,
it was difficult to see who would look after these people.

[Gunship]

Military helicopters began evacuating Americans and
Europeans from Liberia's besieged capital at dawn Monday, ferrying Westerners out of
embassy compounds for a French ship waiting in the Atlantic.

The evacuations came as Liberian soldiers reported more fighting on the western edge
of the city, where rebels were trying to push into the capital to oust President
Charles Taylor. Explosions sounded in the distance.

The first helicopters took off from the white-walled, barbed-wire topped compound of
the European Union.

Aid agency workers, ducking against debris sent flying from the twirling blades, ran
down a rocky hillside and climbed into French military Cougar helicopters.

European Union forces stood guard with heavy weapons on the fern- and palm-overgrown
hillside above the Atlantic Ocean, as helicopters spun off over the steel-gray
Atlantic.

``We can't work, and we had to leave,'' said Isabelle deBourning, of Medecins sans
Frontieres, running for the helicopter. ``I hope it will be quick.''

A total of 91 international residents of Liberia were to be evacuated from the EU
compound, said David Parker, acting head of the EU mission in Liberia.

They included foreign staff of the International Red Cross Committee and U.N.
agencies, Parker said.

The European Union operates the water plants for this war-ravaged city of 1 million,
now crowded with refugees, and would try to keep a core staff here as long as
possible, Parker said.

Lebanese families, who make up much of the merchant class of west Africa, also were
expected to fly out from the European compound.

Next door at the U.S. Embassy, about 100 Americans were awaiting evacuation, after
gathering overnight.

When most Americans left, Ambassador John Blaney and a coterie of Marine guards were
to remain behind at the embassy, U.S. authorities said.

At the European Union, European troop reinforcements piled out of each helicopter
that landed to fly out the foreign civilians. Troops in green camouflage jumped out
with bazookas and heavy machine guns, in pieces for assembly.

Evacuation had been planned at least since the weekend, when rebels fighting to oust
Liberian Charles Taylor made at least two pushes into the city.

Liberian forces and local radio reported more fighting on the west side at dawn, as
the evacuations began. Explosions sounded occasionally from that direction.

Liberians, residents of a nation founded by freed American slaves, came out of their
shacks and watched silently as the helicopters flew back and forth across the
seascape in front of them.

As fighting reportedly renewed, families bundled mattresses on their heads and rushed
back to the U.S. Embassy complex, where Americans already had refused them entrance
during weekend fighting.

``God will help us,'' a heavy-set Liberian woman said, heading up hill toward the
U.S. complex with cloth bundle on her head.

Late Sunday, soldiers claimed to have beaten back the latest rebel advance into the
capital, driving insurgents deeper back into the swamps lying behind the St. Paul's
river bridge marking the city's western entrance.

The rebels' drive against Taylor gained momentum Wednesday, when a U.N-Sierra Leone
court charged him with war crimes for allegedly aiding Sierra Leone rebels in their
vicious 10-year terror campaign.

By Sunday, Taylor controlled little of the country outside of the capital.

The rebels' leader told The Associated Press on Sunday that insurgents will fight
their way into the capital unless Taylor yields.

``We want the international community to ask him to step down so as to avoid
bloodshed,'' LURD chairman Sehon Damate Conneh Jr. said in Rome, where he was meeting
with the Catholic Sant'Egidio Community, which mediates world conflicts.

``If Taylor doesn't step down, we would go in.''

Taylor vowed in an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday to keep the city.
He directed Sunday's fighting from a white-walled compound in the city's main port on
the Atlantic Ocean.

The port is on the city's west side, and apparently is the rebels' immediate
objective.

Government defense officials said Sunday that rebels made their latest raid across
the St. Paul's River in dugout canoes, bypassing the bridge.

Before the drive on Monrovia, Liberia's civil war already had uprooted 1 million
people within the country and sent 300,000 fleeing to neighboring countries.

[Gunship]

Interesting .... the French getting involved in Liberia ... very interesting. Then again the Americans "was too late" and no British Ship close by. This ship must have been around the corner near the Ivory coast ?


"It's my birthday today but it's a strange day," a
young Kenyan woman said Monday as she prepared to evacuate from the war-torn Liberian
capital with other trapped foreigners.

Lining up to board a French military helicopter in the compound of the European Union
in Monrovia's upmarket Mamba Point area, she conceded that her birthday could have
been worse.

"It's true that it's better to leave than be caught in the fighting but it's sad all
the same," she said.

Liberia's main rebel group, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy
(LURD), on Friday pushed to the edge of the capital and were Monday coninuing to
fight government troops there.

LURD, which launched its insurgency against President Charles Taylor four years ago,
controls much of Liberia, where almost uninterrupted civil war has left an estimated
200,000 people dead since the early 1990s.

Many of the lucky ones leaving Monrovia on Monday aboard the helicopter from Mambo
Point were in tears.

"It's so sad, such a beautiful country," a Briton said.

Another expatriate working for a non-governmental organisation said: "We've been
allowed five kilos of baggage each. We have to leave the rest behind."

The operation, codenamed "Providence," started shortly after dawn, with the French
military vessel "Orage" anchoring in international waters near Monrovia.

French soldiers then flew to the EU complex and started evacuating the foreigners in
Cougar helicopters.

The scene was orderly with people walking up to the choppers in queues of 15.

Between 300 and 500 foreigners and UN staff were due to be evacuated from Monrovia.
They include Europeans, US nationals, Egyptians, Lebanese, Ivorians and Indian
nationals.

Expatriates were due to be picked up from the nearby US embassy as well, where French
soldiers had taken up positions at the heliport inside the complex.

Amid the activity, sounds of battle could be heard from other parts of the city where
the LURD rebels clashed with with government troops.

A 52-year-old Italian humanitarian worker said: "It's futile to remain trapped in
Liberia and not be able to work.

"We must not feel sad or frustrated. If we can, we will return."

But some people were staying on -- such as two teams from the International Committee
of the Red Cross and the international NGO Medecins sans frontieres (MSF, Doctors
without Borders).

Meanwhile, on the other side of the EU office boundary wall, a group of Liberians
watched the evacuation exercise with a mixture of curiosity and envy.

They were among the tens of thousands who have flooded into the captial since the
rebels arrived on the outskirts on Friday.

They didn't have the option of leaving the war-torn capital.

[Gunship]

Liberian rebels opened a second front in their assault on
the capital Monrovia on Monday as a French warship evacuated several hundred foreign
residents by helicopter from the European Union mission and the price of food and
fuel on the black market soared.

Heavy fighting between government forces and fighters of the Liberians United for
Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement continued during the morning on
the western outskirts of the city. Forces loyal to President Charles Taylor moved in
heavy artillery as they tried without success to dislodge LURD fighters from the
Duala Town suburb, about eight km from the city centre.

Fighting died down after mid-day, but residents said they saw LURD fighters moving
through the swamp that borders Monrovia to the north, to open a new front on the
eastern side of the city. Relief workers in neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire who were in
radio and telephone contact with colleagues in Monrovia later reported an outbreak of
shooting in the eastern suburb of Paynesville.

Monrovia city centre remained shuttered up, with no water or electricity and all
petrol stations closed. The price of a 50 kg bag of rice on the black market nearly
doubled from US$ 20 to between $30 and $40, while the price of a gallon of petrol
shot up from US$3 to US$7.

With no water running in the taps people were forced to rely on wells, many of which
were contaminated. The only place to buy goods openly was from a handful of market
stalls and petty traders plying the streets with handcarts.

IRIN's correspondent in Monrovia warned of an impending food crisis in the city of
nearly one million people if the situation continued to deteriorate. "People will
soon die of starvation," he said.

President Charles Taylor postponed a planned cabinet meeting because of the crisis.
Meanwhile, an emergency debate in parliament was cancelled because not enough
deputies turned up to constitute a quorum.

The 100,000 residents of camps for displaced people on the outskirts of Monrovia who
fled to the city centre when the rebel push on the city began last week, continued
congregating at schools in the city centre and the Samuel Doe sports stadium to seek
shelter.

More than 5,000 gathered at the sports stadium, where they were issued with a food
ration of five cups of rice each.

Police ambulances meanwhile ferried a steady flow of dead and wounded government
soldiers and militiamen from the front line to Monrovia's John F Kennedy hospital and
another medical facility at the executive mansion, the official residence of the
president. Officials refused to give details of casualties.

Despite a warning by Taylor that any looters would be dealt with "drastically"
government fighters continued pillaging houses near the front line whose inhabitants
had fled.

An eyewitness reported widespread looting in the Jamaica Road area near the port. But
security in the port itself was tight and a private security firm continued to
protect warehouses there.

[Gunship]

An uneasy quiet reigned in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, on
Tuesday morning, but rebels battling to oust President Charles Taylor, urged
civilians to keep away from the western suburbs where fierce fighting has taken place
over the past week.

Residents in Monrovia told IRIN in Abidjan by telephone that the Liberians United for
Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement still controlled several western
suburbs of Monrovia, including Duala and Virginia, and the strategic Saint Paul's
bridge, about 12 km from the city centre .

"The LURD are in control of these suburbs and have passed word around to people to
keep off these areas," one resident said.

Taylor's forces brought in heavy artillery on Monday to try to dislodge the LURD
fighters from Duala, but residents said the assault failed. LURD forces had meanwhile
moved through swamps to the north of Monrovia to open a new front on the eastern side
of the city, they added.

Shooting erupted near the eastern suburb of Paynesville on Monday afternoon, but the
area was quiet on Tuesday.

Ghanaian foreign minister Nana Akuffo-Addo and Mohammed Ibn Chambas, the Secretary
General of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), flew into Monrovia
on Tuesday for emergency talks with Taylor aimed at securing a ceasefire. They
earlier visited Guinea, which according to diplomats, provides strong backing for
LURD.

...... Shortened ....

Foreign embassies and international organisations have already evacuated nearly all
their international staff from Monrovia. French embassy officials in Abidjan said 534
evacuees were taken out by military helicopters on Monday to a French warship
anchored off the Liberian coast. It was due to arrive in Abidjan in neighbouring Cote
d'Ivoire on Wednesday.

Ghana said it was preparing to send a :p warship and several planes to pull out its own nationals. :p

Robertsfield international airport was crowded with civilians - especially members of
the large Lebanese business community in Liberia - trying to leave the country on
charter flights. Almost all scheduled services into Monrovia have been suspended.

..................... Shortened .....