Massacre Victims Buried, As Justice Ministry Turns Over Senator for Trial

There was wailing and anger Friday at the Paynesville cemetery as hundreds of residents gathered to witness the burial of 12 of the 14 victims of the recent massacre on the banks of the Farmington River at the border between Margibi and Grand Bassa counties in south-western Liberia.

The other two bodies were turned over to relatives to be buried outside of the capital. The government, according to the information ministry, provided the caskets for the burial of the victims.

Meanwhile, police in Monrovia have arrested Margibi Senator Roland Kaine who was contesting the land on which commerce ministry official Charles Bennie’s contracted laborers were working when they met their gruesome fate.

Out of the estimated 36 contract workers, only two persons have been found alive. Residents of the area believe more bodies could be buried in the Farmington River where the 14 bodies were found.

The justice ministry turned over Senator Kaine to police Friday following several hours of questioning.

The arrest of Senator Kaine, a former fighter of the erstwhile National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) of Charles Taylor, comes in the wake of a demonstration staged by hundreds of residents of the Slipway Community, a slum in central Monrovia.

The demonstrators, who mounted roadblocks in front of the justice ministry on Ashmun Street in central Monrovia on Thursday, demanded government’s swift intervention in bringing the perpetrators of the massacre to justice.

Source African Press Agency

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