Back in the day, I had a friend from Liberia.
Her parents were upper-middle-class and lived in Monrovia.
She said they woke one day to find rebels at the doorstep of Monrovia, and there was a mad dash to the airport. She said a country had sent planes to evacuate its citizens from Liberia, but the Liberians were buying the seats on those planes to escape.
Her parents could only afford to send her; she never saw them again.
I asked, “This war didn't start in one day; why didn't you leave earlier?”
She said, “We simply heard about an attack here and there and never assumed it would come to Monrovia.”