Top: Marijuana joint security forces seized from illicit miners in the Sapo National Park. Filed picture/Joint Security
By Varney Kamara
KORJAYEE, Sinoe County – Joint security forces have seized a slew of banned substances from illegal occupants in the Sapo National Park, dismantling a major, decades-long illicit drug hub.
Last month, soldiers, police, anti-drug agents, border officers, and forest rangers deployed at “Camp America,” one of the 13 known illegal settlements in the park. So far, some 2,000 people have been removed from the area, and with them an array of drugs from occupants.
“The place is a lawless ground where people are getting drunk with harmful drugs in the camps,” said John Smith, the park’s manager, in an interview with The DayLight in Jaylay Town. “We also heard stories about people getting intoxicated, and a few death cases relating to harmful drugs in the camps.”
Drug abuse is one of the adverse impacts of mining on communities. However, this is the first time the ones associated with the Sapo park, West Africa’s second-largest rainforest, have come to light. Pictures of the seizure in an unpublished official report, seen by DayLight, show heroin, marijuana, tramadol, and the deadly Kush. An unpublished joint security report, seen by The DayLight, said occupants practiced “immoral and cruel acts far away from human civilization.”
The park’s drug trade is being fueled by Nigerians, Sierra Leoneans, and other nationalities, using land and water routes, according to residents and ex-park occupants alike. Drugs are smuggled into the park at night, eluding rangers.
Many illegal occupants are hooked on drugs, according to ex-occupants DayLight interviewed. After taking in the harmful substance, they bleed from their noses and mouths. In some cases, they die from an overdose.
“Our children are spoiled with drugs. As a mother of three boy children, I am saddened by the pictures I saw in the camp. When I see a boy child smoking and think about kids, it makes me feel so bad,” said Beatrice Giddings, who ran a business in the 1,804-square-kilometer park. Giddings was speaking to reporters in Korjayee, where the joint security is based, and one of the entrances to the forest.
Leaked videos obtained by The DayLight corroborate Giddings’ comments. In one of the videos, a young man is seen crying and begging for mercy while being tied. His cries, however, fall on deaf ears, as his torturers ordered that he be given kush instead. A deadly mixture of chemicals, kush kills about a dozen weekly and hospitalizes thousands in neighboring Sierra Leone. It has wreaked havoc in Liberia since its introduction four years ago.
Nixon Browne, chairman of the Movement for Citizen Action, which advocates for the park’s protection, said people have made illegal drugs a permanent business in the park.
“The camps are a major hideout for this kind of criminal business that the guys need to support their habit,” said Browne. “There are other people who want to live in the camps because there is a drug there.”
