West African peacekeepers were due to arrive in the war-ravaged Liberian capital Monrovia after two months of intense fighting left hundreds dead and more than 200,000 homeless and hungry. The force -- which is eventually expected to grow to be between 3,000 and 5,000-strong -- will be spearheaded by a battalion of Nigerian infantry currently on duty with a UN force in neighbouring Sierra Leone. A military source in the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown told AFP on Sunday the 776 troops of the advance party would leave the city shortly after 7:00 am and head directly for strategic points around Monrovia. "The helicopters will fly in waves and secure vital areas including areas which would open up humanitarian assistance for hard pressed Liberians to get food and other vital necessities," the source said. Inside Monrovia the deployment of the Nigerians is expected to be greeted with joy by a population that has suffered more than a decade of see-sawing civil conflict topped off since June 5 by attacks on the capital itself. Both the government of President Charles Taylor -- who has vowed to step down on August 11 -- and the rebel movement Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) have promised to work with the peacekeepers. Both sides have, however, breached previous ceasefire agreements, and after a weekend in which Taylor launched a failed but bloody bid to recapture Monrovia's sea-port few observers expect an easy transition into peace. Despite the doubts however, news that the Economic Community of West African States' (ECOWAS) mission was at last about to go ahead inspired a mood of anxious optimism in a city gripped by hunger and menaced by disease. The mission has been set up by ECOWAS but has some international financial backing and has been given a tough UN mandate to stabilise Liberia. On Saturday Taylor -- a former warlord who fought his own way to power in a bloody civil war and had turned Liberia into a breeding ground for regional instability -- agreed to step down. Nigeria, west Africa's economic and military giant, had offered Taylor asylum if he agreed to resign as leader of a nation that has suffered more than a decade of war and served as a breeding-ground for regional instability. LURD rose in rebellion against Taylor almost five years ago. Along with a splinter rebel faction, they now control around four-fifths of the country, an impoverished land of 111,370 square kilometres of bush, swamp and tropical forest on Africa's Atlantic shore. The rebels have proved unable or unwilling to capture the capital Monrovia, a port city lying on a string of islands and peninsulas, which is now teeming with around 200,000 refugees, desperate for food and clean water. On Sunday the World Food Programme announced that it had managed to fly in half-a-tonne of nutrional biscuits and planned to bring more. But most planners believe a larger humanitarian mission will require a security force. Vrola Chea, a 24-year-old refugee hiding out in the filthy concrete shell of the ruined hotel overlooking the frontline bridges, suffered eye injuries when a shell exploded over her head. She feels ECOWAS is her last hope. "We are suffering. We have no food. We are dying," she told AFP. "Nigerian troops should come soon. They should save us." **PHOTO CAPTION*** A member of the ECOWAS Nigerian advance military delegation views bodies of civil war victims piled several to a compartment for want of space in the refrigerator of the morgue of the John F. Kenndy Hospital in Monrovia. (AFP/File/Georges Gobet)