Despite the cease-fire, U.S. helicopters continued to evacuate dozens more Americans and other foreigners from the capital, Monrovia. A team of 18 Navy SEAL commandos was flown to Liberia to reinforce security at the U.S. Embassy.
A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia said 135 foreigners had been evacuated since Tuesday, including the Egyptian Ambassador Ahmed el-Misiri and 49 Americans.
Only a half dozen Americans were among the 20 foreigners who landed in Freetown on Wednesday morning. With word of the cease-fire, American missionaries and relief agency workers may be choosing to remain in Liberia.
A dozen countries, most of them European, have asked the United States for assistance in getting their citizens out.
The UN envoy to Liberia, Anthony Nyakyi, said the cease-fire was reached between government troops and rebels who have been holding hundreds of Liberians, Lebanese and other foreign civilians hostage in a military base in the capital.
The British Broadcasting Corp., quoting an official from the West African peacekeeping force in Monrovia, said the rival factions had agreed to disengage their forces with the African peacekeepers acting as a buffer. It said the rebels had begun releasing some of the African peacekeepers they were holding.
U.S. helicopters had ferried out at least 103 foreigners by Wednesday morning, said Navy Commander Bob Anderson, a spokesman for the U.S. European Command in Germany who is with the evacuation team in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Most of the evacuees appeared to be Egyptian, Lebanese and other foreigners.
One MH-53 helicopter, equipped with a M-60 machine gun jutting from its rear, even came back from Monrovia empty Wednesday morning, apparently not being able to find others who were prepared to leave the capital.
A C-130 cargo plane, equipped with bulletproof carpeting and capable of transporting several hundred passengers, left for Dakar at midday with only about 25 passengers and crew on board.
Dudley Sims, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia, said the city was calm Wednesday morning but battles had raged overnight. "There was lots of heavy arms fire, probably mortars,'' Sims said. "It was raining and at first I thought it was thunder and lightning, they were booming like you wouldn't believe.''
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