Monrovia – Disadvantaged youths otherwise referred to by some Liberians as zogos (for males; zogese for females) occupying the Coalfield Market in Redlight, Paynesville, Wednesday, April 17, got on the rampage again.
Report by Willie N. Tokpah / 00231777039231 [email protected]
Those disadvantaged Liberians threatened that if President George Manneh Weah himself doesn’t intervene in alleged unwholesome treatment being meted out against them by some elements of the Liberian National Police (LNP), they are going to openly ransack the whole Redlight Market and other communities in the area.
They told FrontPageAfrica Wednesday, April 17, that some police officers moved on them during the midnight hours of Tuesday, April 16, and brutalized 15 of their colleagues, who were sleeping.
Marketers were seen packing off as a result of the threats from these disadvantaged Liberians, who had threatened to disturb their business activities.
“We are packing because we don’t want these children to damage our goods. Their leader has ordered us to leave because her boys were preparing to disturb the market and we are not the ones to stop them, it’s the police,” Janet Marley, a fish seller said.
One of the females (zogese) told FrontPageAfrica that the police officers allegedly raped and forcefully inserted a stick in two of her friends’ womanhood.
“When they came in the room in the night, they forced me and the other girl to have sex and later forced stick in our private parts. We are bleeding right now as you can see from the way I am walking. My friend’s condition is very bad at the moment.”
Another disadvantaged youth, alia “Force”, who received a wound on his head, said, “This is not the first time they have come on us without telling us where to go. We don’t have anywhere to go and are waiting on the President Weah to do something.
“When we went to CDC party office right after the election, the President told us that he was going to help us leave the streets, but we have not heard from him. We don’t have money to go elsewhere on our own,” Force stated.
According to him, he can identify some of the officers who came to raid them.
These Liberians, most of whom terrorize ordinary Liberians during the day and most times at night, have established a visible base in the Coalfield Market, where marketers and passersby have complained of constant harassments during the night hours.
These zogos threatened that they are giving the President three days to make timely intervention before they create hell in Redlight and surroundings.
The leader of the Coalfield Market hangout that hosts these disadvantaged youths, Rebecca Kamah Kollie, alias ‘Mother Lion’ expressed disenchantment over what she called the move by security forces on her base during the night hours to brutalize and force her guys out without prior notice to vacate the area.
She said 15 of them are currently under critical conditions and are lying at the Coalfield Market in Redlight, Paynesville awaiting government emergency healthcare response.
“First of all you have to give warning before you move in, but you cannot see children like these sleeping in the night and come on them with cutlasses and start to hurt them,” Mother Lion stressed
“We want the government to come and carry these children to hospital and the only way we feel that they can come is for us to take action, this is why we told marketers to pack off.
Nobody would care for them if we allow things to be normal in this market; these are people’s children here, not because they are on the streets. This is not the first time for them to do this kind of acts here.”
Mother Lion is calling for government to help rescue the disadvantaged youths, who are currently under critical conditions.
“If it was not for the respect of some of us, then, the children are demonstrating by now, but I talked to them that they have their mothers, brothers and sisters in the market, but we are giving government three days to come in.”
They have also threatened to ransack Redlight Market and its surrounding if nothing is done to provide treatment for at least eight of their men, who they alleged are currently in critical conditions.
Few weeks ago, some of these miscreants from the same Redlight area, reportedly walked several miles brandishing deadly weapons, came and terrorized residents of Fiamah Community in Sinkor.
These zogos came and showed openly on that Saturday hooliganism in the area. Fiamah became chaotic as this organized group of thugs stormed the community to avenge the death of their ring leader who was identified to FrontPageAfrica as ‘King Pharaoh’.
According to police sources, ‘King Pharaoh’ was killed in his bed allegedly by a ring leader in Sinkor only identified to this newspaper as ‘Man Devil’.
A member of ‘Man Devil’ gang was allegedly assaulted by ‘King Pharaoh’ at Renaissance Night Club at Duport Road Junction in Paynesville. In retaliation, according to police source, ‘Man Devil’ allegedly moved on ‘King Pharaoh’ at his home in the Paynesville with thugs and murdered him while in was in bed. After killing him, they brought his body and dumped it in Sinkor, around 17th Street, to prove his supremacy.
But the enraged members of the Paynesville gang stormed 17th Street in demand for ‘Man Devil’ to have him killed, too.
They began chasing people out of the Fiamah Market, leading to the stoppage of all commercial activities in most parts of Sinkor with marketers running helter-skelter until the police moved in to calm the situation.
They also set ablaze the home of ‘Man Devil’ who could not be found.
Prior to moving on ‘Man Devil’s’ property in the same Fiamah Community, they damaged several properties at the Renaissance Night Club where the fight originated.