Monrovia, Feb. 24 -- At 6 p.m. in Sinkor, one of Monrovia's most picturesque neighborhoods, traffic flows calmly past the Monrovia City Hall and the towering Pan African Plaza-now known as the One UN House. The area appears serene, polished, and orderly.

But just a few blocks away on Fourth and Fifth Streets, the scene is starkly different.

Women and children displaced from Saye Town are sleeping on bare porches and in the open air, their mattresses spread under the sky, after a January 31 demolition left hundreds homeless. The demolition followed a court eviction order in favor of a private landowner, bringing bulldozers and front-end loaders into a community many residents say they have occupied since the 1970s and 1980s.

Today, rubb...