Relative calm in the west

Relative calm has returned to western Liberia and some people who had crossed over to neighbouring Sierra Leone are gradually returning to their villages, humanitarian sources in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, said on Friday. On Monday, three UN bodies, led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) went on a fact-finding mission to the areas around Sinje, which border on Sierra Leone. Sinje had been inaccessible for the past one-and-half months after an attack on the area on 20 June by Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebels. "The security situation on the main road from Monrovia towards the border with Sierra Leone is calm," a humanitarian source told IRIN. "Most of the population around the Sinje area have not returned to the area although there were some 200 people who had returned to the camp," the source said, adding that some Liberians who had crossed over to Sierra Leone had started going back to their country. "The team also found out that some Sierra Leone refugees who had fled Sinje camp were living in the surrounding villages," the source said. The town of Gbah, 55 km north of Monrovia, was still "empty", the source said. However, in the entire Sinje area there was need for relief agencies to return, possibly set up mobile clinics, and deliver food to returnees and the displaced, the source added. There were reports of skirmishes in parts of Bong County, northern Liberia, which resulted in fresh displacement. As a result, about 480 new arrivals were registered in camps in Totota, also in Bong, according the source. Upper Bong, the western Tubmanburg area and Bopolu and Lofa in the north - constituting "almost a third of the country" - remained inaccessible, the source said. LURD has been fighting to oust President Charles Taylor's government since 1998. The rebels intensified their attacks in recent months, with the latest round of fighting around Tubmanburg. LURD captured the town, but the government announced on 9 July that it had retaken it.