December 18, 2003

The 6,000 peacekeepers in Liberia have been sending teams all over the country to get an idea of who is out there and what are they doing. It appears that up to 60,000 armed men are scattered through out the country. Some have attached themselves to villages, or groups of villages, as a defense force, in return for food. There is a general lack of food because so many people have fled their farms to avoid the marauding gunmen. But most Liberians, including the majority of the gunmen, want all the violence and chaos to end.