Globe

The west African portion of a century-old globe from an antique store in London, showing Monrovia and Cape Palmas.

Photos of Harper by Aaron Leaf

Several wonderful photos of Harper, Maryland, posted earlier this by Aaron Leaf, whose year-long role supporting human rights reporting at Monrovia's Heritage newspaper, is sadly coming to an end. Also, an excellent person to follow on Twitter.

Good luck with your future endeavors, Aaron!

More great photos of Harper on Scarlett Lion.

Liberia National Airlines, April 1967 Schedule

Images courtesy of Björn Larssen of Timetable Images.

A previous post lamented the current lack of any domestic air service in Liberia in the wake of Elysian Airlines' demise. Its also interesting to explore how extensive such domestic operations once were. From the depths of the internet comes this delightful artifact: the schedule of Liberian National Airlines from April 1967, showing services from Robertsfield to Buchanan, Rivercess, Sinoe (presumably landing at Greenville) and Cape Palmas (Harper, Maryland).

Whats especially interesting is that the service includes a flight between Spriggs-Payne airfield and Robertsfield, a distance of scarcely 50 kilometers, a hop which the schedule allows twenty minutes to complete. A box below details the leg northward to Freetown from both RIA and Spriggs on Wednesdays. A separate matrix details passenger fares and excess luggage charges.

Despite the sleek jetcraft zooming across the glossy cover of the brochure, LNA operated only two sputtering Douglas DC-3s to run its entire network, so recalling this as the golden age of Liberian domestic air travel may be somewhat rose-tinted. According to the Encyclopedia of African Airlines (Ben R. Guttery, 1998), LNA eventually merged with Ducor Air Transport to form Air Liberia in 1974, a carrier which survived until the outbreak of fighting in 1990.

Special thanks to Björn Larssen of Timetable Images for allowing the reposting of the above images.

UPDATE: Map of the Liberian-Ivoirian Frontier, Draft 3

In light of the increasing warfare within Ivory Coast, the situation along the Liberian-Ivoirian frontier continues to deteriorate alarmingly. This third draft incorporates information published by the United Nations last week, underscoring that the refugee inflows have begun to rapidly inundate Grand Gedeh County, south of the intense battling between Bloléquin and Duékoué. This report highlighted the arrival of Ivorians in to the villages of Janzohn/Janzon, Sewaken/Sweakan, and Tuzohn, which is a significant town in the history of Liberia's civil war fighting and Samuel K. Doe's home town.

If anything, is even less able to absorb displaced persons that Nimba County, and at least 6,000 have crossed the Cavally River in the last week. With only 125,000 people, Grand Gedeh would be overwhelmed with even a small portion of the refugees escaping the violence across the western departments.

As Elizabeth Dickenson wrote in her excellent Foreign Policy essay, advocating for foreign intervention in the Cote D'Ivoire standoff, Liberia has four counties that border Cote D'Ivoire, and with rebels eyeing the key port of San Pedro, which is an economic lifeline to the isolated River Gee and Maryland Counties, it is unfortunately anticipated that all four counties will soon feel direct effects of the violent escalation.

As with the previous iterations, this map is available for reuse under Creative Commons rules-- please credit me and Moved2Monrovia.