(11 May 1996) English/Nat

In Liberia, tens of thousands of people have fled the capital as the fighting between the factions that control the city continues.

Armed mobs roam the city extending their territory street by street.

Some of those fighting are just boys with weapons meant for men.

Rebel troops fighting under the warlord Charles Taylor secured a new front line position in the Liberian capital of Monrovia as the fighting continued.

Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia, or N-P-F-L, are made up of heavily armed fighters but some of them are just boys.

They let off 60 millimetre mortars like fireworks. The shot was intended for the Barclay Training Centre held by the rival Krahn clan.

Taylor launched his attacks on Liberia six years ago and West African peacekeeping forces have been created to try and quell the fighting over the years.

The U-S hopes they will eventually be able to bring the country back under control.

SOUNDBITE:
I hope that there's an African solution because the international community is, of course, involved on the humanitarian side, on the integration side. We want to stay involved, the U-S does but we very much want the ECHOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) and ECHOMOG (ECHOWAS Monitoring Group) to be successful in bringing this to resolution.
SUPER CAPTION: William Milam, U-S Ambassador

More than 150-thousand Liberians have died in the fighting and half the population of 2.9 million has been left homeless as the half dozen warring factions fight it out.

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


#Liberia #Monrovia
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...