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Liberian scene worsens

MONROVIA (Liberia) june 25. Shells exploded in refugee-crowded neighbourhoods of Liberia's capital on Wednesday, sending thousands of civilians fleeing as the President, Charles Taylor's forces battled rebels pressing hard into Monrovia.

Fighting shattered a week-old truce and raised prospects of the deadliest possible end to Liberia's 3-year-old insurgency: an all-out battle among undisciplined armies for the city of 1 million, now packed with hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Battles on Tuesday night and Wednesday appeared to mark the fiercest yet combat in the city. They also signalled the first time Mr. Taylor's forces and rebels had battled virtually through the night. ``This blatant act of terror will be fought all the way,'' Mr. Taylor declared on his private radio station on Wednesday, denying, as artillery boomed, that he had fled the city.

``My life is no more important than yours,'' the Liberian President vowed. ``I am here with the men and women in arms, encouraging them to fight on. Because my survival is their survival, and their survival is mine.'' Fighting was reported to be concentrated at the city's port, on the west side. The Red Cross put out appeals over the radio for blood for injured at Monrovia's hospital, but shells slamming into the city made it almost impossible to venture out.

Mr. Taylor's forces have lost at least 60 per cent of the country to two rebel groups, each determined to drive out Mr. Taylor, a U.N.-indicted war-crimes suspect accused of roiling West Africa's conflicts for 14 years.

Rebels pushed across Monrovia's St. Paul's river bridge late Tuesday, breaching the capital for the second time in a month.

The attack comes with the seaside capital filled to bursting, with school yards, shelled buildings and the Liberia's national soccer stadium packed with tens of thousands of refugees.

Shells hit up to midnight in Monrovia's Sinkor neighbourhoods.

They burst among scores of families, said one private resident of the district. He spoke briefly by phone, describing the scene as a shell landed just outside his house, before fleeing himself. Artillery boomed into the daylight, against a backdrop of small-arms fire. — AP

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