Some 19,000 former Liberian combatants have handed in their weapons, the United Nations mission there says. This is almost half of the 40,000 fighters, many of them children, who took part in Liberia's long civil war. The ex-combatants from all sides are eager to disarm, a UN spokeswoman told BBC News Online. The 14-year conflict ended last year when President Charles Taylor stepped down and was replaced by a power-sharing government. The interim authority is due to organise elections next year and a restructured National Elections Commission was sworn in on Friday morning. The commission is headed by former supreme court judge Frances Johnson-Morris. They handed in their weapons when the programme first began in December but some rioted, demanding payment for the weapons up-front and the disarmament programme was put on hold until earlier this month. The ex-combatants are paid $150 when they are demobilised and a further $150 after being given vocational training so they can live civilian lives. On Friday, the UN mission in Liberia, Unmil, is returning to Monrovia to finish paying and demobilising those who handed in their weapons in December. In the past two weeks, they have been in Gbarnga and Tubmanburg, previously held by the Lurd rebel group, and Buchanan, stronghold of the Model rebels. Some observers have expressed concern that the 19,000 fighters have handed in just 11,000 weapons. But a UN official said that many fighters shared their guns during the war. Ms Novicki said: "Fighters from all sides are enthusiastically participating in this programme. They want to disarm." She said that in Tubmanburg the UN team had a capacity to disarm 250 ex-combatants a day and 1,000 turned up when the programme began. The UN has some 14,000 peacekeepers in Liberia but is yet to deploy in the far south-east.