– Citizens Demand

By Edwina Sia Janga

What is of great concern to many Sierra Leoneans is the prevalence of youths around the city, at specific road junctions, courting vehicle owners on the pretext of begging, while their true intention is to rob people.

Many people have become victims of robbery from such youths. It is a common and regular scenario in places like East end Police round about, Lumley round about, Dundas Street, etc. where these youths approach vehicles in traffic with the usual ‘Bra You Borbor Dae’ slogan, requesting for handouts. In most of the cases, several of these youths crowd around the vehicles, looking for opportunities to steal whatever they can lay their hands on. While pretending to be asking for financial help for food, the others are busy looking for any opening of the vehicle to get their hands through and pick something out. In such operations, which in the opinion of many people, due to experience, seems to be carefully orchestrated: as one youth will engage the driver of the vehicle, distracting him or her attention, while the others deep their hands into the vehicle to take out any item that they can easily take away. It can be noticed that one youth or a set of youths will be on the driver’s side, engaging him in discussions, while on the other side of the vehicle, other youths will be trying to get their hands into the vehicle.

It is common for vehicle owners to put their phones, Ipads, handbags, purses and even laptops on the front seats of their vehicles, and these become easy targets for these marauding youths. Thus, after successfully distracting the attention of the driver, the others on the other side of the vehicle grab what they can from the vehicle and take off. They all later converge and sell their loot and share the proceeds.

Unfortunately, these actions are dictated by the urge that kush induces in them. They then use the money to buy the drug and return to look for another prey. Most disheartening is the fact that these things happen where the police are present. While it could be argued that the police would want to get them away from the streets, some vehicle owners, especially top business people and politicians give them handouts, even as the police are directing traffic. In some cases, these police would be very busy trying to clear traffic and going after these youths in such situations can be hazardous.

The activities of these youths jeopardizes the genuine vulnerable people, who depend on philanthropists in vehicles to help them survive for the day, like the blind and disabled. These too are seen on the streets with young kids helping them to beg from passing vehicles. It is this mixture of crowd that criminal youths capitalize on to rob innocent people.

They can even be seen in crowds waiting to board transports. Pretending to also be traveling, they orchestrate a rush to get into a transport, forcing others to do the same, and in the process, steal from unsuspecting passengers. This is common where people are gathered and waiting for transportation.

Many restaurants are calling on the police to stop these youths courting vehicles on the streets in the name of ‘bra you borbor Dae’, as they are nothing but thieves looking for opportunities to rob people. Police officers should be parading these areas and get rid of these criminal youths.