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Liberia Troops Accused Of Massacre in Church

Liberia Troops Accused Of Massacre in Church
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July 31, 1990, Section A, Page 1Buy Reprints
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Hundreds of men, women and children who had taken refuge in a church here were massacred on Sunday evening, witnesses said today. The witnesses said the slayings were carried out by troops loyal to President Samuel K. Doe, whose Government is under a ferocious rebel siege here in the capital. [In Washington, the Liberian Embassy denied any Government involvement in the killings, but the United States Government said it had confirmed that Liberian troops were responsible. The State Department put the death toll at 200 to 300.] Survivors of the attack said Government troops had broken into St. Peter's Lutheran Church, in the city's Sinkor refugee district, and killed men, women, children and babies with knives, guns and cutlasses. Witnesses said at least 600 refugees were killed. #2,000 Refugees in Church The survivors said a group of 30 soldiers firing machine guns had broken the door and fired point blank at some of the 2,000 refugees who had been there since rebel forces reached the capital three weeks ago.

Soldiers then went to the upper floor and fired at hundreds of refugees, the survivors said. They said the soldiers killed men with knives and shot women and children with machine guns.

Soldiers ordered some women who tried to flee with their children to stand aside, according to the account, and other soldiers then fired on them.

''We thought they had come to ask us questions,'' said a man who had hidden during the killings. ''Then they started killing and everyone began screaming and trying to hide.''

Survivors said the soldiers were from the Krahn tribe of President Doe. Most of the refugees were from the Gio and Mano tribes, which have supported the rebel armies that now control most of Monrovia. The refugees fled to the church hoping to avoid reprisals.

Rebels Have Upper Hand

The rebels are poised to move in to overthrow Mr. Doe, who is guarded by a few hundred soldiers at his seaside mansion.

The entire floor of the church was thick with bloodstains and bodies were huddled under pews where the victims tried to hide.

Bodies of boys 7 or 8 years old were draped on the altar and a pile of bodies was half-hidden in a dark corner.

Dead women lay on the floor with children wrapped in shawls on their backs. A crucifix had been thrown to the floor. Bullet holes riddled the ceiling.

'Where Is My Son?'

An wounded woman who had been placed on the church steps pleaded: ''My people, help me. My son. Where is my son? I beg you, don't leave me.'' A man nearby, his neck slashed with a cutlass, called for water.

The compound was filled with the bodies of women and children brought out after the massacre. People passing by were speechless as they looked at the rows of bodies.

Witnesses said that Government soldiers were rounding up survivors of the attack. The soldiers ordered the survivors away from the building and shot into the air to make them move.

U.S. Vows Not to Intervene

The United States condemned the massacre but said it would not intervene to stop the killing.

Charles Taylor, the rebel leader who heads the 15,000-member National Patriotic Front of Liberia, encouraged an exodus from Monrovia by urging people to move to rebel-held areas.

He broadcast several times since rebels captured the independent Christian radio station ELWA on Friday, proclaiming himself head of a new government and promising to hold elections within six months.

But a rival rebel leader, Prince Johnson, whose forces led the offensive into Monrovia, has called Mr. Taylor a Libyan-trained Communist who should be tried for embezzlement. Mr. Johnson, who said he led 7,000 heavily armed men into the capital, called Mr. Taylor ''a criminal and a rogue.''

The United Nations Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, voiced ''horror and dismay'' at the massacre and appealed for protection of civilians caught up in Liberia's civil war.

Rebels Tighten Their Grip

Rebel armies attacking from the east and west of the capital have clamped President Doe in a tightening grip. But today a Reuters correspondent saw Mr. Doe's troops force rebel units to abandon positions close to the station outside Paynesville, six miles east of the city center.

Rebels from Mr. Taylor's group, which began the war in December, are attacking from the Paynesville area. Rebels led by Mr. Johnson have penetrated closer to to Mr. Doe's mansion from the north and west.

Mr. Johnson told Western photographers that the American Embassy turned down a request he made Thursday to send in 2,000 marines, now cruising offshore with a naval task force.

''I was told our civil war was the internal affair of Liberia, as though the United States had never interfered in the affairs of other people like those of Grenada, the Philippines or Panama,'' Mr. Johnson said.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 1 of the National edition with the headline: Liberia Troops Accused Of Massacre in Church. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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