Summary:
- Residents of Saye Town in Monrovia have destroyed a notorious drug den, accusing authorities of years of inaction against crime and addiction in their community.
- The Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency welcomed the raid, but locals remain distrustful, citing alleged collusion between some agents and traffickers.
- Meanwhile the head of the Independent National Commission on Human Rights claimed senior government officials are complicit in the drug trade.
By Nemenlah Cyrus Harmon and Anthony Stephens with New Narratives
SAYE TOWN, Monrovia – The country’s roiling drug crisis erupted into violence today as residents of this community stormed and demolished a notorious drug den that they said had plagued their neighborhood for a decade. Saying they were fed up with government inaction more than 80 residents armed with sticks, cutlasses, and sheer determination, sent a clear message to government and drug dealers: they are willing to take matters into their own hands.
The target was an area known as Mary Broh Field Ghetto, an infamous den that locals said has been the breeding ground for crime, addiction, and social decay since the early 2010s. According to Jahbulleh C. Dempster, the community chairman, the ghetto has been a magnet for criminal activity and a passage into drug addiction for scores of young people.
“Most of the crimes committed in our community are carried out by people from this ghetto,” Dempster told this reporter. “It has destroyed families, turned our young people into addicts, and made them useless to society.”
A leader from Saye Town Community points to the spot that was hosting the ghetto; photo by Nemenlah Cyrus Harmon
A Crisis Unfolds
Liberia’s substance abuse crisis is clear to anyone who lives here. Drug dens, known here as “ghettos” are appearing in towns and cities all over the country. A 2023 study by the United Nations Population Fund found that one in five Liberian youth use narcotics – most often a synthetic mix of dangerous chemical like fentanyl and methamphetamine called “kush”. In 2023 civil society groups report over 866 drug dens operating in Monrovia alone. Estimates are that one in every five Liberian youth is now using drugs.
Years of Pleas, No Action
The community said they had written letters to the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency and visited its offices multiple times, but were met with the same answer: “no logistics” meant no help would be coming. Past attempts to clear the ghetto failed because the dealers simply returned.
This time, the residents acted with precision. At 4:00a.m., while most of the ghetto’s occupants were still asleep, they moved in and demolished the makeshift zinc structures and set them ablaze. By 7:00a.m., the site was flattened.
Dempster said the operation’s success was due to speed, numbers, and secrecy. The next step, he explained, will be to form a 25-man vigilante watch team to prevent the drug dealers from returning.
Deep Distrust of the Drug Enforcement Agency
Also today the chairman of the Independent National Commission on Human Rights, the leading independent human rights watchdog, made explosive accusations at a press conference saying senior government officials were complicit in the drug trade. Dempster Brown provided no evidence but said government and drug agency officials were taking money from drug traffickers.
“Most of these big people, are in drug business,” Brown said. “The issue of big, big hands in this thing is not hidden. But they go to the president and laugh. So, the drug prosecution cannot be successful when government officials’ hands are in the drug business. I want the president to know today. He should get concerned. He should look around his feet. Those that are around him that he’s not sure of, let him get rid of them.”
Brown called for an independent inquiry to investigate allegations of government officials involvement in the drug trade. He also recommend law enforcement go after the importers of drugs and not only the consumers and sellers. He said vehicles, ships and airplanes used to carry drugs be sold and money placed in a government managed account. And he said the budget of the Drug Enforcement Agency should be increased with a pay rise for agents to reduce the incentive to take payments from traffickers.
Finally, Brown urged President Boakai “to lobby” the presidents of Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Guinea to put a mechanism in place to tackle the region’s drug trade.
Kula Fofana, the president’s spokeswoman, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Dempster Brown of the Independent National Commission on Human Rights in a Facebook Live press conference Wednesday.
The Drug Enforcement Agency has been plagued by problems. Three top officials were dismissed in November after what the Boakai administration said was a “disturbance” at the Agency. No details were given. In a previous FPA/New Narratives report, Hassan Fadiga, the dismissed deputy director for operations at the Agency, alleged that “97 percent of agents have ties to traffickers – Some are dealing drugs themselves. Others are compromising cases. Of 644 employees, only 144 have received basic law enforcement training.”
Orlando Demey, the Agency’s communications office publicly welcomed the Saye Town raid, saying it showed the kind of community action needed to win the fight against drugs, but residents remain skeptical.
“Frankly, we do not trust them,” Dempster said echoing the claims. “There’s a history of some Agency personnel conniving with drug dealers.”
Demey acknowledged that the agency faces major constraints, from a lack of vehicles to a congested headquarters and said communication lapses sometimes prevent action on community reports.
Experts Warn of Dangers of Vigilante Justice
The Saye Town action comes on the heels of a growing wave of citizen-led drug crackdowns across Monrovia, spurred by what many see as government indifference despite President Joseph Boakai’s 2024 declaration of drug abuse as a “national emergency.”
“The people are tired,” said Anthony Nimley, a former addict turned anti-drug activist. “If COVID-19 and Ebola got urgent nationwide action, why not drugs? Every family now has an addict. Every community has a ghetto.”
Nimley, who spent 12 years in a ghetto before turning his life around, warned that without proper rehabilitation programs, simply chasing addicts out of one neighborhood will only push them into another or into deadly withdrawal.
Both Dempster and Nimley stressed the need for a national rehabilitation program to treat addicts and reintegrate them into society. “These young people are victims,” Dempster said. “We can’t just drive them out without giving them a chance to recover.”
Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee calls drugs a mental health crisis at an event at the Office of the War and Economics Crimes Court Wednesday.
Leymah Gbowee, one of Liberia’s acclaimed peace activists, also weighed in on the growing crisis today calling for a proper drug rehabilitation program. Speaking Wednesday at a lecture hosted by the Office of the War and Economic Crimes Court to mark 22 years since the signing of the Accra Peace Accord, Gbowee compared drug-related trauma to physical injuries blaming the crushing weight of poverty and inequality in which most Liberians are forced to live.
“People’s minds break just as a human foot breaks,” Leymah Gbowee said to an audience that included many school-age students. “Drugs are not the main problem,” she said. “The main problem is the mental illness.”
Meanwhile Saye Town Community Chairman Dempster had a pointed message for other neighborhoods struggling with entrenched drug activity: “They have to be vigilant, they have to be fearless, and they have to think about the future of their children because these ghettos are spoiling the children.”
Dempster dismissed concerns that communities taking the law into their own hands was a challenge to the rule of law and national security.
“I don’t think we are taking the law into our own hands because community policing right now is done by the community,” he said. “We are buttressing the effort of the law enforcement agency because the law enforcement agency cannot be everywhere at the same time.”
Drug agency spokesman Demey echoed that view. “No, because we work in collaboration with the community,” he said. “When the community takes on these issues, they inform us, and we back them up to carry out the act.”
Saye Town’s leadership insists that the Agency was not present during the raid, and that only the Liberia National Police offered support.
For now, Saye Town is breathing a sigh of relief, but experts its victory may be short lived. Without sustained enforcement and accessible rehabilitation programs, displaced dealers could quickly reestablish themselves elsewhere. They warned this could mark a dangerous new phase of the drug crisis and a challenge to national security.
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives. Funding was provided by the Swedish embassy in Liberia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.
