Liberian Forest Occupied by 200 Ivorians

More than 200 heavily-armed Ivorian farmers have seized a forest in Liberia, scattering terrified inhabitants in an incursion described in parliament as a "national threat", a security source and locals said Friday.

The security source, providing details of an occupation first raised in Liberia's senate earlier in the week, said the ethnic Mossi tribespeople were claiming the land for their country.

"They are more than 200 and they have occupied a forest where a logging company... was operating during Taylor's regime," the source told AFP, referring to jailed warlord Charles Taylor, who was president between 1997 and 2003.

"They are making coffee and cocoa farms and (are) well-guarded by men armed with AK47s."

Liberians with homes in the forest, in the southeastern county of Grand Gedeh, told AFP around 2,000 people had fled to nearby villages, fearing for their lives.

The security source said a group of the farmers had crossed the porous border several months ago and six were arrested and returned to Ivory Coast.

"According to the information we got, the Mossis told the authorities there that the land belongs to Ivory Coast. This is how they came back well-armed," the source said.

The incursion marks a worrying development in a campaign of violence by militants crossing in the other direction that has displaced thousands and claimed dozens of lives in the border area.

"This is causing serious panic among our people," said Marshall Dennis, a Grand Gedeh senator, when he raised the issue in parliament on Wednesday.

The senate -- Liberia's upper house -- has announced it has set up a committee to investigate the allegations.

Dennis described the situation as "a national threat" which could create "a problem between the two sister countries".

The Mossi are the largest ethnicity in Burkina Faso and significant tribal grouping in Ivory Coast, where they account for more than a million of the population of around 23 million.

"They came with force, they were armed, heavily armed, so we had nothing left to do but to run for our lives," said forest dweller Emanuel Dweh, who escaped with his family to the nearby settlement of Tiah Town.

Locals told AFP they had not seen any physical abuse, but were intimidated into leaving when the gunmen fired warning shots into the air.

A political crisis was ignited by former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo's refusal to accept election defeat to Alassane Ouattara in 2010, leading to a four-month conflict that claimed some 3,000 lives.

Thousands of Gbagbo's supporters fled the far west across the porous 700-kilometer (435-mile) border into neighboring Liberia when he was captured in April 2011.

Observers say the pro-Gbagbo political elites, now mostly in Ghana or elsewhere in west Africa, are funding incursions into western Ivory Coast by Liberian mercenaries and Ivorians recruited in Liberia's refugee camps.

In the worst incident, seven United Nations troops from Niger, 10 civilians and at least one Ivorian soldier were killed while patrolling villages south of the town of Tai.

Incursions in the other direction have been rare, however.

Experts have warned that the violence could intensify in the months ahead of presidential elections due to take place in Ivory Coast in October.

Ivorian authorities were not immediately available for comment.