The Liberian Observer reports the Reverend C. Wellington Morgan, acting pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Monrovia, Liberia, west Africa, narrowly escaped death after being attacked in a tricycle by armed robbers who left him with some serious wounds.

The Presbyterian Church is the country’s third oldest after the Baptist and Methodist churches in Liberia. The Presbyterian Church was founded in 1833, eleven years after the arrival of the first freed slaves and fourteen years before Liberia declared its independence. The Presbytery of Liberia became independent in 1928. In 1980 the church became a provisional presbytery of Tennessee Synod of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. In 2006, the church decided to sever all relations with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, putting an end to a more than a two-decade-long partnership.

Rev. Morgan came under attack after he had boarded a tricycle as a means of beating the traffic on the Japan Freeway and that of the Freeport route. Rev. Morgan disclosed that within minutes after entering the tricycle, one of the male passengers in it took out a knife demanding his mobile phone or they would kill him.

“While in bitter exchanges with the attackers, two of them, they managed to take the phone and then push me out of the tricycle, which was speeding. This landed my head against the middle divide along the Japanese highway, resulting in injuries at the back of my head and left arm and other parts of the body,” Morgan said.

The attack against Rev. Morgan which happens in daylight and on the popular Japanese freeway comes just two months after the U.S. Department of State has assessed Liberia as being a CRITICAL threat and issued a Crime “C” Indicator on its Travel Advisory for Liberia, indicating that there may be a widespread violent crime and/or organized crime present in the country, and/or that local law enforcement may have limited ability to respond to serious crimes.

https://www.liberianobserver.com/liberia-first-presbyterian-church-pastor-escapes-death