Liberian fighters enter Ivory Coast, refugees say
Tuesday, 9 November 2004
Liberian fighters enter Ivory Coast, refugees say
MONROVIA, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Former fighters from Liberia are crossing into Ivory Coast to work as guns for hire after hostilities resumed in their West African neighbour, civilians fleeing the violence said on Tuesday.
Refugees from Ivory Coast who started leaving after government warplanes bombed the rebel-held north last week and rioting broke out in the main city Abidjan said they had seen young Liberian fighters going the other way.
More than 1,300 refugees have fled from Ivory Coast into Nimba County in northeastern Liberia since the crisis began last Thursday, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.
"We saw over 50 Liberians crossing into Ivory Coast to fight for the government. Each person is being paid $500 by the Ivorian soldiers who are recruiting them," said Anthony Nangbe, arriving with his family in the Liberian capital Monrovia.
"Some of those we saw were already in Ivorian military uniforms in an Ivorian truck heading towards Ivory Coast."
He said he had seen a group of boys taking magic charms which they believed would make them bullet-proof, a common practice in parts of Africa.
"Ivory Coast is a virgin place. It is ripe to loot," Nangbe quoted one fighter he met at the border as saying.
The World Food Programme said it was making contingency plans to cope with up to 5,000 Ivorian refugees.
Liberia is struggling to emerge from more than a decade of civil war which left it economically ruined, awash with weapons and home to hundreds of thousands of jobless youths.
Its two rebel groups -- Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and Model -- formally disbanded last week and the biggest U.N. peacekeeping force in the world, made up of 15,000 soldiers, has helped disarm fighters.
But disarmament has not reached all parts of the country and has been patchy along the eastern border with Ivory Coast. The U.N. force has said in the past it has received reports that guns and former fighters have been crossing its porous borders
