LIBERIA: REFUGEES AT THE JAH TONDO CAMP PREPARE TO MOVE AGAIN AS REBELS ADVANCE ON THE CAPITAL MONROVIA..

Record ID: 275340

  • Title: LIBERIA: REFUGEES AT THE JAH TONDO CAMP PREPARE TO MOVE AGAIN AS REBELS ADVANCE ON THE CAPITAL MONROVIA..
  • Date: 17th July 2003
  • Summary: (W7) MONROVIA OUTSKIRTS, LIBERIA (JULY 27, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. MV: FAMILY LEAVING CAMP CARRYING BELONGINGS ON THEIR HEADS. 0.08 2. MLV: CHILDREN IN CAMP. 0.13 3. SOLDIER WITH AN AK47 GUN 4. MLV/MV: CHILDREN AND YOUTHS WALKING WITH AK 47 GUNS. (2 SHOTS) 0.22 5. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) ISHMAEL KONNEH FLEEING WITH FAMILY, SA
  • Embargoed: 1st August 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: MONROVIA OUTSKIRTS, LIBERIA
  • Country: Liberia
  • Reuters ID: LVAAVZ50HVYACYXXAATEVJPTPAX6
  • Story Text: Refugees from Liberia's fourteen years of civil war
    prepare to move again with the latest rebel advance on
    President Charles Taylor's forces.



    The camp's very emptiness seems to amplify the rumble
    of distant gunfire for the tired and weak Liberians packing
    their sacks to flee again.

    Hopes that a West African peacekeeping force, maybe even
    the U.S. troops they crave, might come quickly to save Jah
    Tondo Camp dwellers from another bout of killing have sunk
    with the latest rebel advance on President Charles Taylor's
    forces.

    Hundreds were killed during fighting in the steamy
    capital, Monrovia, last month as tens of thousands fled for
    the city. Nobody knows how many died in the bush.

    With spirits raised by talk of peace, a few people had
    drifted back to Jah Tondo, a short drive beyond Monrovia's
    outskirts and still more comfortable than the mouldering
    stadium and crumbling buildings where they had sheltered.

    But rebels who were driven back by Taylor's forces before
    the latest truce seized the key road junction of Klay on
    Wednesday and the fear is that Jah Tondo will lie in the path
    of their advance again.

    This time many do not even talk of reaching the city.

    "We just want to get into the bush, we're too scared by
    the shots. We are just taking our children to get into the
    bush," said Ishmael Konneh, a father of seven who apart from
    that has a sack of clothes and a cooking pot to his name.

    Like most of the others, he has been on the run for years.

    The country founded by freed American slaves as a haven of
    liberty more than 150 years ago has known little but violence
    for 14 years.

    Former warlord Taylor has agreed to exile once regional
    peacekeepers arrive and U.S. President George W. Bush has said
    a small American force might also be sent.

    But signs of movement are slow and even a ceasefire
    monitoring team promised weeks ago is yet to arrive.

    Terror now competes with utter exhaustion for those who
    remain in the alleys that run between Jah Tondo's cracked mud
    and palm thatched hovels.

    The fighter who made hearts leap is barely bigger than his
    own Kalashnikov: Kahelie Kollie says he is 13, but looks
    barely 10. He has been in combat for three years and is
    uncertain even where he is meant to be posted to fight off any
    attack.

    Guns were once banned from the camp, but the aid agencies
    that used to hand out food and medicine have shut up and now
    there is no control.

    Its people scavenge in the scrawling greenery for whatever
    they can find to eat and loyalist militia fighters often visit
    camps at night to steal any food that's left.


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