Liberia: The suites on the seventh floor of the hilltop Ducor hotel offer an eagle-eye view over Monrovia. The Atlantic Ocean sweeps across one side, the sprawling city on the other, stretching towards the vast marshland of the river estuary.
Now the seventh floor has a new interest - a view of the bridge crossing a narrow stretch of water, and the rebel positions beyond.
Col Victor Guzeh, the commander of embattled President Charles Taylor's First Battalion, stood by a blown-out window. "We will defend until the last man can die. We cannot give up," he said with a quiet defiance.
On Sunday the key bridge - known locally as "old bridge" - thundered with gunfire as rebels attempted again to cross into central Monrovia. Yesterday the position was quieter but still tense.
Seven booms signalled a fresh barrage of rebel shelling. A rattle of gunfire erupted. Col Guzeh stepped back from the window. "They are launching now. No special target. It lands anywhere," he explained.
During its heyday in the 1970s, the Ducor was Monrovia's most plush hotel. At one point it was part of the Intercontinental chain. "This place was very much attractive, people came from all over the world. It was like entering a different world," said Emmanuel Diehyee, the one-time hotel accountant.
The doors closed in June 1990 as Liberia exploded into a civil war led by President Taylor, then a rebel warlord. Now its sodden, debris-strewn corridors are home to over 1,000 refugees. A clutch of government soldiers occupies the top floors.
In the rooftop Bistro bar, where Mr Diehyee - himself a refugee- spoke, there are few echoes of the former opulence. The bar is collapsing, water drips from the pockmarked roof into large puddles, and clumps of grass sprout through the tiles.
On the lower floors, hungry families crowd into draughty rooms that could be hit by rebel mortars. Women hunker over charcoal stoves on the stairwells, preparing meagre meals. The bottom floor stinks of human excrement. Drinking water is collected from the rain, and cholera is rampant. Some victims are carted to hospital by wheelbarrow, others die first.
Down at the reception, 20-year-old student Beyn Zey leaned on the chipped marble counter, listening to the latest reports of fighting on the BBC. "No rooms here," he joked. A refugee from the northern Lofa County, he was selling three cans of luncheon meat at 50 Liberian dollars (60 cents) each. "I'd like to be a doctor. But because of this war, I'm just surviving," he explained.
President Taylor's fighters say they mostly use the hilltop building mostly for reconnaissance; if necessary they open fire into the streets below.
Sometimes they hit civilians. In the Graystone and Masonic Temple, heaving displaced camps, just a few hundred metres downhill from the hotel, dozens of refugees are wounded by stray gunfire every day.
"If those criminals come across the bridge a lot of people will die. So when they try to cross we open fire," said Col Guzeh.
Despite their bravado, the government fighters say they are tired of war.
"The LURD cannot win and neither can we," admitted Sgt Fred Johnson, dressed in jeans and running shoes and carrying an AK-47 rifle. "There is no winner in war, only survivors." Like the coastal city's desperate civilians, they would welcome a planned West African peacekeeping force. "We cannot sort this out by ourselves so we need to see if other people can come and bring peace," added Sgt Johnson.
Yesterday Nigeria, which has promised 1,300 troops as the vanguard of a larger 3,250-strong force, failed again to announce a firm deployment date.
With Monrovia divided between two forces at war, it is hard to see how it can deploy in current conditions. In theory the West African deployment will trigger action from the US, which has sent 2,000 US soldiers to Liberia by sea.
President Bush says President Taylor must leave office first but as fighting rages, that departure looks as uncertain as ever.
As the delays mount, so does the humanitarian crisis. Food stocks in Monrovia are running critically low, and in some areas residents have taken to eating cats and dogs. Skeletal figures are turning up at the handful of aid agency feeding centres.
Civilian casualties are mounting at the overcrowded Red Cross hospital.