U.S. Forces Evacuate Americans, Others from Liberia
By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON -- U.S. service members are evacuating
American and third country nationals from Liberia, Pentagon
officials said.
On April 6, civil war broke out in the western African
country. U.S. European Command sent in a five-man assessment
team to evaluate how to get Americans out. The result was
Joint Task Force Assured Response and the order from
Washington to begin noncombatant evacuation.
About 20 U.S. Navy Seals went in to beef up the Marine
Corps security detail at the embassy. U.S. Air Force MH-53
helicopters began ferrying people April 9 to Freetown,
capital of Sierra Leone, northwest of Liberia.
U.S. troops from RAF Mildenhall, United Kingdom;
Ramstein Air Base, Germany; Boeblingen, Germany; and
Vicenza, Italy, set up a support base at Freetown, according
to a DoD spokesman. From there, evacuees boarded C-130s for
flights to Dakar, Senegal, where U.S. forces set up a
temporary safe haven.
Many evacuees are gathered at the walled U.S. embassy
in Monrovia, Liberia's capital. Others are trapped by rival
factions in other areas of the city. U.S. troops are
escorting those trapped to safety in the embassy.
DoD officials confirmed U.S. special forces drove off a
group of Liberians attempting to break into the U.S.
Embassy.
Daytime air evacuations from the embassy in Monrovia
were halted after two incidents in which four rocket-
propelled grenades were fired causing two inbound
helicopters to turn back, the spokesman said. Air
evacuations from the embassy resumed after dark, he said.
By April 11, about 90 Americans and about 400 third
country nationals on 19 U.S. flights had voluntarily left
the city swept by violence and looting.
The evacuation was labeled an "authorized departure,"
the spokesman said, which means American citizens who want
to leave are authorized evacuation at government expense. An
"ordered departure," the spokesman said, is when all
Americans are ordered to leave.
No Americans had been injured or held against their
will as of April 11, according to the spokesman.
Additional helicopters were being sent to the West
African city from the states. As a further precaution, ships
from the amphibious ready group in the Mediterranean were
ordered to the area and were expected to arrive in about 10
days, the spokesman said.
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