Top: Some of the over 2,000 illegal occupants the Armed Forces of Liberia removed from the Sapo National Park in Sinoe County, so far. Filed pictures/Joint Security Forces
By James Harding Giahyue
Monrovia – Joint security forces have removed over 2,000 illegal occupants from the Sapo National Park in a crackdown on transnational crimes and regional insecurity.
A report on “Operation Restore Hope IV,” seen by The DayLight, said the forces had full control over “Camp America,” one of the park’s 13 illegal settlements. It said soldiers had set up camps at one location each in Sinoe, Grand Gedeh and River Gee.
“People were processed into two categories to exit the park: women and children first and then men,” the report said. “The men were also placed into categories to exit the park in order not to overwhelm the officers escorting them out of the park.” The report said some of the illegal occupants fled the camp.
The report said a gradual and humane approach was required to remove the occupants because many had stayed there for over a decade. All entrances to the camp have been shut down, with only people exiting the park allowed, it added.
Over 200 officers walked for nine hours to Camp America in the 697-square-mile Sapo. There, they demolished structures and mines, and seized illegal items before amicably removing occupants.
Pictures in the report show illicit drugs, a bottle of mercury and a single-barreled gun. One picture shows soldiers standing before a crowd of cooperative occupants, with tarpaulin-roofed huts in the background.
Security forces observed that occupants used only the L$500 and L$1,000 notes, with the report calling for an anti-money laundering investigation.
The report also cited a high level of prostitution, human trafficking and cruel acts, which are “far from human civilization.”
Established in 1983, the Sapo National Park is the largest in Liberia and the second largest in the Mano River region. It is home to a variety of endangered species, including African elephants, pygmy hippopotamuses, and western chimpanzees. With the highest diversity of mammal species, it is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.
However, the park has been plagued by illegal activities for decades.
The operation is the largest since United Nations peacekeepers removed 5,000 occupants in the 2000s, marking the end of Liberia’s civil wars. It’s part of broader efforts to combat illegal cross-border activities, illicit financial flows, and the influx of undocumented migrants into southeastern Liberia. Immigration authorities have recorded over 54,000 Burkinabés in the region, an EU envoy linked to a Sahel migrant crisis.
In all, the joint security, comprising soldiers, policemen, border guards, rangers and anti-drug agents, intend to remove an estimated 15,000. They are expected to move to the other 12 known camps, including the most infamous Camps Afghanistan and Iraq.
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