Hostilities are again on the rise five years after the last Liberian civil war ended.
UN relief co-ordinator Carolyn McAskie told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday that the political and military situation in Liberia is deteriorating rapidly. Meetings with government officials, civil society, humanitarian partners, opposition parties and others all brought out high concern that the country could fall back into civil war, with rebel attacks already occurring. Liberia has experienced five relatively peaceful years after the scrupulous warlord Charles Taylor took control in the country and ended the civil war in 1997. Taylor's repressive regime has been able to fully control the situation within Liberia these years, at high human rights costs. His aggressive foreign policy, which led to UN sanctions being imposed on Liberia this month, however led to the destabilisation of the entire region and, finally, to the new threats of civil war in Liberia.