Police have launched joint security patrols targeting criminal hideouts within the Greater Banjul Area. 

According to police the aim of the operation is to tackle crime and criminal activities within communities and to dismantle all criminal hideouts, as well as prosecute offenders in accordance with the law.

“The public is hereby notified that, they maybe seeing high presence of security movements within their vicinities as routine patrols will be intensified,” police said in a statement.

Police urged people “not to panic and should go about doing their lawful businesses”, but “individuals going armed in public with knives and other small weapons will be stopped and searched and anyone found wanting will be processed and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law.

“All criminal dens, vous, ghettos, and criminal hideouts will be targeted during the exercise.”

Meanwhile, police asked members of the public who wish to travel outside or leave their homes for other reasons during odd hours of the night “to carry with them documents for identification purposes”.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba