Monrovia – Residents of GSA Road community in Paynesville city are said to be living in fear due to consistent attacks from armed robbers.
Odo Brown, a resident of the community, said his home has been burglarized three times and they are reluctant to refurbish.
According to Brown, the robbers used the back door of the house, went in the house and made away with flat screen and phones.
“We woke up seeing our house disarranged. We felt so downhearted,” she said.
To prevent another attack from the robbers, Odo said her husband Dennis installed iron doors at both entrances. But the robbers have not.
Another resident, Zinnah who recently moved in the community is worried and now wants to move out.
“When we moved here, they climbed in the fence and took away almost all part from my husband’s old car,” she said.
“We were up watching a movie; they put the family under gunpoint and took away everything. We screamed but everyone was afraid because the robbers kept firing.”
Steven Tweh, Chairman of the community, expressed regret over the numerous attacks on residents of the community.
Tweh said that youth of the community have set up a community Watch forum to protect the community from armed robbers.
Despite the presence of the Community Watch Forum, which is being sustained with the support of residents, the community is still struggling to scare away robbers.
“The Watch Forum is helping us a lot, but they lack weapons to scare away armed robbers, because when these robbers come, they come with an arm to either badly wound or kill anyone who may stand in their operations,” Tweh.
The peace operations review in its 2008 report states that potential regime insecurity is matched by personal insecurity. Violent crime, including armed robbery leading to serious assault and even death, appears to be on the increased.
UNMIL reported 19 incidents of armed assaults on individuals and 20 incidents of armed attacks on residences in August 2007 in Monrovia alone, and outside Monrovia, some dramatic incidents of communal violence have been reported.
But senior UNMIL and government officials caution that the high crime figures are the result of better reporting and do not really represent a spike in incidents of crime.
Report by: SheWrites, She Leads