MONROVIA, Liberia — On a rainy August evening three days before a national referendum, white United Nations tanks rolled down Tubman Boulevard, the Liberian capital’s main road, and took up positions in front of the president’s house and the national legislature. It was a signal Liberia’s security forces and the U.N. force feared poll violence….
Liberian mercenaries returning from western Ivory Coast tell the Monitor that they recently fought for both sides in Ivory Coast’s civil war, killing civilians, raping women, and destroying villages as they went. One commander of a unit of more than 30 Liberian mercenaries who returned days ago from Ivory Coast, Karmo Watson, says he was…
Security along the border between Ivory Coast and Liberia is under threat as Ivorian cross to the Liberian side at will, according to UN officials working at the border. Officials here say the Liberian security presence here is ineffective. Outtara fighters caused panic among refugees in Zleh, a border town in Grand Gedeh County, on…
TOETOWN, Liberia — As gun battles between Ivory Coast’s rival armed forces intensify, throngs of refugees are fleeing the fighting for the relative safety of neighboring Liberia. About 90,000 Ivorians have crossed into eastern Liberia, according to U.N. refugee experts, who expect that number to swell to 500,000 if Ivory Coast slides back into civil…
