Over 100 Prisoners Break Out Of Liberian Jail

Over 30 of the escapees from the prison in the Liberian capital Monrovia have since been recaptured, a senior police officer said.

Over a hundred inmates escaped Liberia's only maximum security jail on Monday, overcoming guards with stones, sticks and bottles before forcing open the compound's gates, prison officials said,

"We do not have weapons," a guard at the South Beach prison told journalists. "Over a hundred prisoners marched outside to push the gate open by force. We could not control them ... They overpowered us."

Over 30 of the escapees from the prison in the Liberian capital Monrovia have since been recaptured, a senior police officer said, and security forces were trying to track those still at large.

"They came in their numbers. As they came, they started throwing stones, sticks and bottles. We had to give way for them to leave," said another police officer who had been injured during the jailbreak.

South Beach prison, which normally holds more than 900 inmates charged with offences from theft to murder, is guarded by Liberian police and personnel from UNMIL, the United Nations mission in the country, many of whom are Nepalese.