Dead buried on beaches as Liberia repels rebels

MONROVIA, Liberia - President Charles Taylor's jubilant forces claimed to have driven rebels out of Liberia's ruined capital Friday after a four-day artillery battle that killed hundreds, and left trapped families burying their dead on the city's Atlantic Ocean beaches.

The rebels "are having it rough," Taylor declared, after a victory tour of his capital, where refugee families roamed without shelter and rising smoke marked rebels' fiery retreat.

Rebels declared a unilateral cease-fire at midmorning Friday, but rocket barrages, shelling and arms fire intensified until government forces managed to drive insurgents out of the port hours later.

The port, with its food warehouses and nearby city brewery, had been among the focal points of combat as Liberia's rebels tried to push their way into Monrovia, driving home their three-year war to force out Taylor.

For the second time this month, Taylor's forces managed to hold back insurgents at the port, and eventually force them back across the St. Paul's River bridge that marks the western boundary to the city.

Under the onslaught, residents estimated at least 500 civilians were killed in the port area alone. Picking up their dead Friday and searching for shelter, Monrovia's bitter people waited only for the next round of fighting.

"Whether or not the port has been recaptured is not important," said 45-year-old Minnie Suoh. "What we want is peace, so we can go back home."

Taylor's forces rushed past, waving fists in the air in victory.

Mortuaries had filled as Monrovia's death toll climbed, leaving civilians to hastily bury the dead - family members, and strangers found on the streets - on the city's Atlantic Ocean beaches during the fight, at times with rockets slamming into the sand around them.

Thousands demonstrated Friday outside the U.S. Embassy, urging the United States to use its might to stop the conflict in Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century, and one that still sees itself as America's offshoot in Africa.

"George Bush we are dying," said the message on one sign in the crowd. "We need you now, America," another sign said.

Thursday, the crowd laid bodies of victims of the rocket barrages outside the embassy.

Health workers tried to deal with growing hunger and disease in the wake of the fighting. With the city's food stocks tied up in the embattled port, rice, flour and other staples had tripled in price, if they could be found at all. Cholera spread in the city of 1-million, swelled by hundreds of thousands of refugees. In Ghana, West African mediators suspended Liberia's month-old peace talks for a week, saying conditions on the ground had made them impossible.

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