Government troops seek refuge in Sierra Leone

A group of 131 Liberian government soldiers accompanied by over 200 dependents has crossed the border into Sierra Leone and surrendered to the Sierra Leone army, a military spokesman said in Freetown on Tuesday. He said the group had crossed from Lofa County in northwestern Liberia, where government forces have been fighting the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel group, to the Kailahun district of southeastern Sierra Leone over the past few days. The Liberian soldiers had handed over 102 automatic rifles, one light machine gun and three rocket propelled grenade launchers along with a quantity of ammunition to the Sierra Leone army, the spokesman said. The soldiers and their dependants had been transported in trucks made available by the UN peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone to the Mafanta internment camp near Magburaka in central Sierra Leone, he added. Their defection indicates that Liberian government forces lost ground in some areas during a surge in fighting which preceded the signing of a ceasefire with LURD and a second group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), on Tuesday. Shortly before the truce was announced in the Ghanaian capital Accra, the government said it had recaptured the port of Greenville from MODEL and had driven LURD fighters back to Kley Junction, 35 km from Monrovia. LURD fighters launched an assault on the Liberian capital two weeks ago as the peace talks got under way.