Koinange: U.S. Embassy 'took a pounding'

MONROVIA, Liberia (CNN)

Mortar shells fell near the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia Monday, and demonstrators stacked the bodies of civilians outside the embassy gate to protest the lack of U.S. involvement in ending the latest episode in the country's 14 years of nearly continuous civil war. CNN's Jeff Koinange spoke to CNN anchor Miles O'Brien from the embassy.

KOINANGE: I can tell you, we're on the balcony of the U.S. Embassy building. Right behind me is the helipad. And beyond that is the Atlantic Ocean. And that is where we saw the mortars falling earlier on. And we saw about three or four of them, but there was plenty more, maybe about a dozen or more that fell all around this U.S. Embassy.

We can tell you from the start, Miles, that the death toll is rising, about 50-plus right now, scores of injured in the local hospital. It wasn't the embassy that just took a pounding, also the city of Monrovia, scores of death. In fact, they're stacking dead bodies right outside the U.S. Embassy as we speak right now. Liberians are venting their anger at the United States, some of them saying, "If you had intervened, this would not be happening."

The embassy did take a pounding, like I mentioned. The commissary was hit. ---