No Violence

Dressed in identical printed skirts, a hundred Liberian women knelt in prayer after another long day in three weeks of fasting, appealing once more that their country be spared of violence.

Ahead of elections next Tuesday, women of all ages are gathering from dawn to sunset on a roadside close to the party headquarters of several presidential candidates.

Their daily injunction for peace echoes the female activism that helped end Liberia's civil wars, which ran back-to-back from 1989 to 2003. The success of their non-violent protests propelled the bloodied West African state into the world headlines and earned a Nobel Peace Prize for one of its leaders.

The women's peace movement led sit-ins and pray-ins demanding peace talks and reconciliation during the civil war, and its founder Leymah Gbowee went on to jointly win the 2011 Nobel Prize for her work.

"We foresee electoral violence," said one woman, eyeing an armoured police vehicle passing by.

"During the war we were praying and fasting and the war ended," recalls Jassah Ganyan, an elderly lady resting under the tarpaulin roof. "We don't want more war."