U.N. soldiers open fire to stop Liberia mob justice

U.N. peacekeepers in Liberia fired into the air on Wednesday to disperse an angry crowd who burned down a police station as they tried to kill a detainee accused of murdering a local businesswoman.

Residents in the eastern town of Tappita said Bangladeshi U.N. soldiers, stationed in the country since a 1989-2003 civil war, opened fire after local police officers fled as their station burnt to the ground.

"As I speak to you, there is serious shooting going on. The Bangladeshis are firing in the air," eyewitness Joe Dantu, a Tappita businessman, told Reuters by telephone, the sound of several rounds of gunfire echoing behind him.

A spokesman for the U.N. mission in Liberia (UNMIL) said peacekeepers had only shot three rounds into the air and that a team of Nigerian U.N. police officers were on their way from a nearby town to help control the situation.

Fourteen years of civil war reduced Liberia's justice system to a shambles of overflowing prisons and endless waits for trial. Exasperated by a lack of security, vigilante groups often form to fight crime and exact punishment themselves.

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf vowed to crack down on lawlessness when she took office as Africa's first elected female head of state in 2006, but crime remains rife.

Witnesses said the mob in Tappita wanted to avenge the killing of a local woman who was murdered and buried in the surrounding forest. Members of the woman's family attacked the police station in search of her killer after exhuming the body.

Reuters.