Liberia: IDPs begin heading for home

Chanting “no more war” and praying for peace, a first batch of 500 internally displaced people (IDPs) headed home on Monday from a camp where they had lived for years, as the UN and Liberia's government kicked off a scheme to resettle 300,000 IDPs. The UN and the Liberian government have said people must be encouraged to return only on condition a county is safe. Key benchmarks for determining an areas safety are completion of disarmament, the presence of civil authorities, rehabilitation of basic services and unhindered access for humanitarian workers.