By Yankuba Jallow & Nelson Manneh
Personnel of The Gambia Police Force with the support of the army have arrested over hundred people for violating the curfew ordered by the Gambia Government.
The Police launched Operation Save Our Soul campaign which is geared towards implementing the COVID-19 regulations and the Curfew imposed by the Government.
The Gambia has in the past two months seen a surge in the number of positive COVID-19 cases. The Gambia currently registered one thousand and ninety cases of Coronavirus.
According to the police spokesperson, Assistant Superintendent Lamin Njie the Tourism Security Unit arrested twenty individuals and some motor vehicles while the Anti-Crime Unit arrested twelve (12) others and a certain number of vehicles. He said on the first day of the curfew, security agents in Basse arrested fifteen (15) people, and on the second day, they arrested sixteen (16) others, adding fourteen people were arrested in Brikama and twenty (20) in the Central River Region.
PRO Njie stressed that the arrestees will be prosecuted before the courts. He said some of the arrestees were arraigned before the court on Friday and their prosecution will continue.
The spokesperson said the compliant rate is high and he thanked Gambians for honouring the regulations. He called on people to be law-abiding, adding the police won’t relent in their operation to arrest all violators of the regulations.
Our reporters were moving around monitoring the situation and they observed that the compliance rate was high. Some shops around Latrikunda and Tabokoto area were closed, but the shopkeepers were still selling. The police asked them to close their shops and not to engage in sales anymore. All the arrestees were dropped at different police stations by the taskforce members.
On Saturday, 8th August, a motorcycle was apprehended which was carrying three people and it was without a number plate. Nine people were dropped at Wellingara police station and two were dropped at Abuko police station. The police also intercepted vehicles and motorcycles.
