Peacekeepers arrive , rebels agree to withdraw from Monrovia

The first Nigerian troops arrived in Liberia on Monday as the vanguard of a West African-led peacekeeping force that will try to enforce a ceasefire between the government and two rebel groups, clearing the way for relief agencies to operate safely in the war-torn country. The first contingent landed in heavy rain at Robertsfield international airport, 50 km from the capital Monrovia, aboard two white UN helicopters from neighbouring Sierra Leone. Captain Aliyu Jibril, the commander of the initial platoon of 60 soldiers, said about 300 Nigerian soldiers who had been serving with a UN peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone would arrive on Monday to secure the airport. Over the coming week, 1,500 Nigerian soldiers are due to be flown into Liberia to stop the fighting between the government of President Charles Taylor and two rebel movements which now control more than three quarters of the West African country. Jibril said the speed of their deployment to Monrovia and other parts of Liberia would be decided by the force commander, General Festus Okonkwo. The guns fell silent in Monrovia on Monday as the peacekeepers began arriving, following heavy battles over the weekend. The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement, which captured the port of Monrovia and northwestern suburbs of the city two weeks ago, said on Monday it would hand over control of these areas to the Nigerian peacekeepers and withdraw to the northern edge of the city. General Kemoh, alias “K1,” the deputy commander of rebel forces in Monrovia, told IRIN by telephone he had received orders from LURD chairman Sekou Damate Conneh to hand over rebel-held areas of the capital to the peacekeepers and then withdraw his forces to the Po River, about 17 km from the city centre. That should enable relief agencies to access food stocks at warehouses in the port and resume their distribution to Monrovia’s starving population. Aid workers estimate that more than 200,000 of the city’s one million inhabitants have been made homeless by recent fighting. Many have not eaten for several days. Thousands of happy and relieved Liberians chanting “We want peace, we want peace, no more war, “ lined the route from the airport to the city centre waiting to greet the first Nigerian soldiers. But it was not immediately clear how soon they would be sent into the city. Nigeria’s newly appointed Foreign Minister, Oluyemi Adeniji, arrived along with the first contingent of troops and immediately went to deliver a special message to President Taylor. Adeniji has until now been the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative in Sierra Leone. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which aims to put 3,250 peacekeeping troops into Liberia by the end of August, demanded last week that Taylor step down and leave the country this week within three days of the first peacekeepers arriving. However, Taylor said on Saturday that he would only resign on August 11. He gave no indication of when he might go into exile to take an offer of political asylum in Nigeria. Taylor’s spokesman said the Liberian leader was reluctant to leave the country while an indictment for war crimes by a UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone, still hung over him. Over the past two months, Monrovia has been the scene of heavy battles between government forces and LURD forces attempting to capture the city. Last week, a second rebel group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), captured Liberia’s second city Buchanan, 100 km southeast of the capital. Several hundred people, possibly several thousand, have been killed in the recent fighting and relief agencies have warned that the population of Monrovia is on the brink of starvation. Vital food stocks, including more than 9,000 tonnes of food belonging to the UN World Food Programme, had been stored at warehouses in the port of Monrovia. However, food distribution to tens of thousands of starving people ground to a halt because aid agencies based in the government-controlled city centre were unable to access these food stocks on the other side of the frontline. LURD has admitted taking some of the WFP food and distributing it to hungry people in the northwestern suburbs of Monrovia. WFP finally began airlifting emergency food supplies into Monrovia at the weekend for distribution to displaced people in government-held areas of the city. Other relief agencies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), have been using Robertsfield airport to fly supplies into Monrovia throughout the crisis. WFP said it flew 500 kg of high energy biscuits into Monrovia on Saturday – enough to feed 4,000 people. It pledged to fly in a further 11.5 tonnes of emergency rations over the next few days. Manuel Aranda da Silva, WFP’s regional director for West Africa, said: “It is an expensive operation, but we have no choice. People are crying out for food and this is the only way we can get aid into the city at the moment.”