Fighting resumes in interior as Ghanaians and Nigerians evacuate

Nigeria and Ghana have begun evacuating thousands of their nationals from the Liberian capital Monrovia by air and sea as the ragged city remains quiet but tense amid reports of renewed fighting in the interior on Monday. Relief workers reported clashes on Monday between government and rebel forces at Kley junction, 35 km northwest of the capital. A Ghanaian naval vessel, the Bonsu, sailed from Monrovia with over 1,000 Ghanaian nationals aboard on Saturday. A navy spokesman in the Ghanaian capital Accra said a second warship would dock in Monrovia on Wednesday to pick up hundreds more people, many of whom have camped outside the Ghanaian embassy to await evacuation. Nigeria meanwhile airlifted about 800 of its nationals out of Monrovia on Sunday aboard two airliners chartered by the government. Nigerian embassy officials said they were planning to evacuate about 4,000 members of the 30,000-strong Nigerian community in Liberia over the next few days. Most were traders whose businesses had been looted after a rebel push into the western suburbs of Monrovia on June 5 led to several days of heavy fighting in the city. Last week, a French warship evacuated 535 foreigners from Monrovia, including most of the city's expatriate relief workers. The government ordered schools, shops and businesses to reopen on Monday as peace talks in Ghana between President Charles Taylor and two rebel movements struggled to produce a hoped-for ceasefire agreement. Some children in school uniform appeared in the street, but many schools found it impossible to reopen because they were occupied by thousands of people who had fled to the centre of Monrovia to escape the recent fighting between government forces and rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement. The government had appealed on Sunday for civil servants to resume work, but only a handful turned up on Monday morning at the education and finance ministries and the situation in most other government departments was reported to be similar. Banks remained closed and only a few shops were open, Many shopkeepers appeared anxious to sell their goods before they were simply stolen by armed combatants. "I'm auctioning my goods before they loot them," said Mohamed Bah, a petty trader from Guinea, which according to diplomats is LURD's main backer. The LURD fighters retreated to the Po River bridge 17 km outside Monrovia on last week, shortly before the peace talks resumed in Accra, but Monday's report of fighting at Kley junction indicated that they had been pushed back further since then. LURD officials at the peace talks in Accra also reported clashes with government forces around the town of Ganta in northeastern Liberia. Monrovia, a bedgraggled city of one million people with no mains electricity or running water, has remained quiet for the past seven days. But the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), a second rebel movement which has occupied most of southeast since it appeared on the scene in March, said some of its positions in Sinoe and Grand Bassa counties in central Liberia, had come under attack from government forces. Few details of the latest clashes were available, but Defence Minister Daniel Chea, who is leading the government delegation to the Accra peace talks, confirmed that fighting was still going on in the interior. "As long as there is no ceasefire the chances skirmishes will happen are great," he told IRIN. "This should strengthen the resolve of all of us to sign a ceasefire that causes every party to stop attacking each other. The sooner we sign a ceasefire, the better it will be for all of us." The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sierra Leone reported a renewed influx of Liberian refugees across the border. It said 500 crossed on Thursday last week and quoted a LURD official on the border as saying a further 1,500 to 3,000 were on their way. Relief workers in Freetown said that two battalions of Liberian government troops in Lofa county in northeastern Liberia were reported to be negotiating their disarmament and entry to Sierra Leone at the weekend, but Chea denied suggestions that there had been a mass defection of his forces in the area.