Fearful Liberians Flee Capital Environs
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HARBEL, Liberia — Hundreds of frightened people fled this area south of Monrovia on Monday after a massacre of civilians near the capital over the weekend.
About 300 people were killed in the attack early Sunday morning and 700 were wounded, Nathaniel Bartee, a doctor, said.
Photographs published in Liberian newspapers showed babies with their heads smashed and a woman with her belly slashed open and her unborn child ripped out.
Survivors were still too shocked to describe the raid on the farming camp, near the Firestone rubber plantation about 35 miles northeast of Monrovia.
Brig. John Adda, Ghanaian deputy commander of the West African force sent to end Liberia’s civil war, blamed the rebel National Patriotic Front of Liberia led by Charles Taylor for the massacre.
“The action of the rebels should reveal to the world the kind of people ECOMOG (the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group) is dealing with,” he told reporters.
Taylor denies the accusation, calling it a pretext for ECOMOG and its militia allies to launch a new offensive against him.
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