Workers plastered over bullet holes and restocked looted shelves at former front lines as Liberia's capital returned to its pitiful, prewar state on Wednesday, one month into the pivotal deployment of West African peacekeepers.
An additional 500 troops from Guinea-Bissau landed on Wednesday, and the number of African peacekeepers is expected to reach its promised full strength of 3,250 next week.
PHOTO: AP
Even at that size, commanders of the peace force say they lack the numbers to confront persistent unrest north of the capital, where threats of new fighting sent tens of thousands of refugees on the move on Wednesday.
In Monrovia, West African patrols -- stopping at times to flirt with young women or haggle from their vehicles with vendors -- have brought calm since the first troops arrived on Aug. 4.
For most Liberians, life remains hard, even in the capital. Daily arrivals of ships and planes with aid have yet to stem the hunger here, and cholera is epidemic -- with 2,000 new cases reported last week alone, the World Health Organization says.
"Before, we were worried by the gun, but now it's food and sickness," says Amara Kanarkpah, a father of four and one of 11,500 refugees crammed into a crumbling Masonic temple in Monrovia. He sleeps with 200 others who crowd each night into a single room of the temple.
Only 1,500 people have left their bare shelter at the Masonic building since peacekeepers deployed on Aug. 4. Aid workers had hoped for a mass exodus from the city, but that hasn't happened. The countryside remains too unstable.
On Wednesday, fleeing families with bundles on their heads streamed toward Monrovia, down the main highway north of the capital.
Many had been residents of refugee camps holding 60,000 people outside the capital. When sounds of gunfire and mortars and rumors of fighting nearby reached their camps on Tuesday, they said, they took off running in the direction of the city.
Quieting Liberia's interior may have to wait for the deployment of UN peacekeepers. Many here suspect fighters in the countryside are trying to secure last bits of territory and spoils ahead of their arrival.
In Monrovia, "at least now, there's no shooting," says Kanarkpah, 34.
He and hundreds of thousands of others fled to Monrovia as rebels opened their sieges of the capital in early June.
The offensives -- and international pressure -- eventually helped force President Charles Taylor out of office and into exile in Nigeria on Aug. 11. Rebels and the government signed a peace deal one week later.
Aid workers are racing now to treat the city's 5,392 known wells, hoping to cut off the cholera epidemic. A measles vaccination campaign also is under way.
Since restarting operations, the World Food Program has delivered more than 1,300 tonnes of food to Monrovia's people, who were reduced during the fighting to eating leaves, snails and whatever else they could find.
But Monrovians complain they get only corn meal, an emergency ration that without cooking oil or other nutritious additives is only barely digestible.
Other supplies are arriving daily, and ships carrying more are on their way, aid workers say.
Those with means who are accustomed to starting over after 14 years of Taylor's power struggles are putting the capital's bare-bones economy back together.
"Everything seems safe in town now. We see the peacekeepers and see they're doing their best," said shopkeeper Khalil Azar, as workers at his building supply store unwrapped cherry-red generators.
Fighting knocked out the capital's power plant in 1992, and Taylor never got around to fixing it.
Armed peacekeepers manned sandbagged checkpoints outside the store.
"This poor country! We have to do everything we can for it," said Azar, a member of Monrovia's dominant Lebanese business community.
Shacks selling palm wine have sprung up at the peacekeepers' base at Monrovia's port, which was heavily looted during the fighting but now is operable. Troops and civilians drink together, bobbing heads to Nigerian tunes.
"We see them and we know we can't fight anymore," says a 24-year-old, unarmed rebel fighter calling himself O.J. Desperate, identifiable as an insurgent by the red dental floss dangling from a pierced ear.
Peace force commanders expect to reach their full strength as soon as next week.
Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau already have sent soldiers. Forces from Ghana are hoped for by Friday, and the last slated troops -- from Togo -- days after.
Officials agree that force is understaffed. President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria -- the largest troop contributor with more than 1,500 soldiers -- called it "grossly inadequate."
A transitional government arranged under the peace deal takes over from Taylor's successor, Moses Blah, next month, and a UN peace force of 1,500 troops should begin arriving.
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