A House with Two Rooms - The Advocates for Human Rights

Liberians also took refuge in the U.S. Embassy (Greystone) compound and the Voice of America
compound, hopeful that a U.S. presence would lend some protection. 98 One statement giver told of
taking refuge in St. Thomas Church in Monrovia, but then being forced out by United Liberation
Movement – Johnson faction (ULIMO-J) forces. 99 Others sought shelter in Firestone’s vast rubber
plantation near Harbel. 100 Statement givers also report seeking shelter at Soul Clinic, 101 Barclay Training
Center, 102 and other locations in and around Monrovia. After the death of Samuel Doe, the Barclay
Training Center was a place of refuge for members of the Krahn tribe. “All the Krahn families were
packed into Barclay Training Center – there were thousands of Krahn people there because there was
no other safe place.” 103
Eventually, some security was established in official internally displaced persons’ centers. By October
2000, the World Food Programme reported that it was assisting 183,900 internally displaced persons
living in 14 camps located around Monrovia. 104 By the end of the conflict in 2003, at which point
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that there were more
than half a million internally displaced persons in Liberia, Fendell was still housing many of them. 105
Major internally displaced persons’ centers outside of Monrovia included Maimu in Bong County and
Basayma Camp in Buchanan. 106 By 2004, there were at least 20 official camps within Liberia housing
more than 261,000 people. 107 These camps hosted not only Liberian internally displaced persons, but
also Sierra Leonean and Ivorian refugees. 108 But even when there was relative safety in the camps,
conditions were often desperate. Liberians told the TRC of loved ones dying from cholera in the
Barclay Training Center and other internally displaced persons’ areas during the conflict. 109 According
to one source, by the end of 2002 less than five percent of deaths in the camps were the result of
violence, while 61 percent resulted from diarrhea, malaria, malnutrition, anemia, febrile disease, or
respiratory infections. 110
Crossing the Border
Hundreds of thousands of Liberians became refugees in surrounding countries in West Africa, with
numbers peaking at more than 780,000 in 1996, according to U.N. estimates. 111 Those Liberians who
fled the conflict in the 1990s got out by any means possible. Often this meant walking for days, weeks,
or months, hitching rides in vehicles, and traveling in boats – large and small. Liberians sought safety
primarily in the neighboring West African countries of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Côte d’Ivoire. A
significant number of Liberians also went to Ghana and Nigeria, although these nations do not share
a border with Liberia. Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire received the largest groups of Liberian refugees over
time, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, but Sierra Leone and Ghana also received large groups
of Liberian refugees. 112 The largest group moved from Nimba and Lofa counties into neighboring
Sierra Leone and Guinea. Another huge group of refugees traveled from southeastern Liberia into
Côte d’Ivoire.
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Chapter Thirteen