'Gravely concerned,' UN refugee chief urges peace force to quell violence in Liberia

Expressing "grave concern" over the situation in Liberia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ruud Lubbers, again today called for an immediate end to hostilities and for deployment of an international peacekeeping force to fill the current security vacuum in the war-ravaged nation.

A statement issued by a UN spokesman in Geneva said the High Commissioner expressed concern for "the suffering hundreds of thousands of innocent Liberians," as the fighting has now spread to at least 11 of the country's 15 counties. "Awash with weapons, the law of the gun prevails and innocent civilians are the victims," the statement said.

During a visit last month to Liberia and four other West African countries, the High Commissioner urged the warring parties to cooperate with the International Contact Group's efforts toward a ceasefire and called for the deployment of an international force to keep the peace. "He also called on Liberian President Charles Taylor to step down, noting that Liberia had for years been at the epicentre of the region's displacement problems," spokesman Ron Redmond said.

"The High Commissioner was stunned when several of Monrovia's remaining humanitarian workers - not the sort of people who normally favour military intervention - told him they favoured deployment of peacekeepers to Liberia," said Mr. Redmond, adding that they saw no other way to stop the killing and the misery.

A month later - even though there have been increasing calls for such a force - there is still no firm sign of any deployment. Mr. Redmond said the High Commissioner believes that whether the force is in the form of an expanded mandate of the UN's mission in neighbouring Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), under the leadership of a Security Council Member State, or through some other arrangement, something needed to be done to stop the killing and end the suffering of Liberia's people.

Every country the High Commissioner visited - including Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Guinea - has felt the effects of Liberia's long and dangerous disintegration. Of the more than half a million refugees scattered across the region, some 300,000 are from Liberia. And more are leaving every day in a desperate search for survival and safety.