The Liberian capital of Monrovia came to standstill Friday afternoon when representatives of more than 3,000 widows of dead army personnel took to the streets and blockaded all intersections, impeding motor traffic.

Pedestrians said that they had to walk several kilometers from the city center to the outskirts as vehicles could not get out of the city to ply many of the routes leading out of the city.

The women were protesting what they termed as "government's delay" in paying them benefits of their deceased husbands.

"The government has been pushing us around for too long and we fed up," one of the protesting women told Xinhua.

Liberia's Defense Minister Daniel Chea told Xinhua that the decision to pay the widows was a political one taken by the government because such arrangement was never part of the restructuring exercise of the army.

"The widows were not part of the demobilization and restructuring exercise of the army," Chea said. "We hope the government would find a way to settle the problem," he said.

Liberia's Justice Minister Kabina Janeh acknowledged that the government had accepted to pay the widows, but he said resources were "not available" to settle all of the more than 3,000 widows at once.

Janeh said the women were demanding to be settled at once, but government could only afford to settle them in batches of 50 women per week at 20,000 Liberia dollars (about 400 US dollars) per woman.

"We will keep talking to them to get off the streets and accept the terms of the payment," the justice minister said.

It's not known if the protest by the women would continue overnight. But as night fell, they were still at many intersections. 

Story from Xinhuanet