Government soldiers stormed into a church in the rebel-besieged capital Monday and massacred at least 200 people, most of them women and children, witnesses said.
One witness who visited the Lutheran Church compound in the Sinkor district of Monrovia said he had seen women with their heads smashed open or blown to pieces by bullets with babies still tied to their backs.The witness said he had seen other bodies hanging from the window frames of the church building, apparently killed while trying to escape.
"I saw dead bodies all around," the source said. "This is genocide."
Most of the refugees were members of the Gio and Mano tribes, which have formed the main support for the rebel armies that have fought their way to the base of the hill where President Samuel Doe is holed up in his heavily fortified executive mansion.
Most of Doe's troops are from his Krahn tribe and their allies, the Mandingos. Inter-tribal killings have occurred frequently during the six-month civil war.
Witnesses said the government soldiers broke into the church compound at about 2 a.m. (10 p.m. Sunday EDT), when they knew most of the 200 occupants were asleep. There was no telephone or walkie-talkie in the compound to allow the victims to call for help, they said.
Refugees at a Methodist church across the street from the massacre site fled when they heard the killing.
They are among thousands of civilians who have fled from deadly street battles in Monrovia but have remained snared within the ever-shrinking area of the capital controlled by Doe's disintegrating army.
Doe's troops have lost half the city center to the rebels since the middle of last week and now are confronted by fighters commanded by Prince Johnson, a rival to the other rebel leader, Charles Taylor.
European Community ambassadors in Liberia warned last week that the West African country, which was founded in 1847 by freed American slaves, was slipping into anarchy and was on the brink of national suicide.
Johnson said Sunday his forces were poised to seize Doe and prevent Taylor from becoming the new president.
Johnson, 38, asserted in his first meeting with Western reporters that he is leading the main rebel attack, not Taylor, who declared himself president last week.