The Children Of Jungle Fire Go Into Battle - On A Diet Of Drugs (Liberia)

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The children of Jungle Fire go into battle - on a diet of drugs

On the frontline of Liberia's tragic war...

Rory Carroll, Monrovia
Monday August 4, 2003
The Guardian

First the drugs, then the bullets and then the battle. Jungle Fire battalion knew the routine and lounged on the abandoned market stalls, waiting for the marijuana and crack cocaine to kick in.
It was 4pm and they had to take the bridge before nightfall with an all-out assault to push back the rebels and reclaim the port area of Monrovia, Liberia's capital, for President Charles Taylor.

Waterside district was once the city's trading hub but it was as dead as the decomposing body of the soldier on Merclin Street, the legs rotted, the chest a carcass, the arms missing and the skull gleaming white.

The flies preferred the three civilians further up the street: young men with holes in the head sprawled beside little green boxes of Chinese tea. Executed for looting, said some members of Jungle Fire, felled by mortars, said others. It did not seem to matter...>>MORE

http://www.guardian.co.uk/westafrica/story/0,13764,1011864,00.html