AFL returns to barracks

Information Minister Lewis Brown, has announced that the Armed Forces of Liberia or AFL will immediately return to barracks to carry out its normal duties. He said at the end of September, the AFL will retire from various entry points across the country to be replaced by the police and officers of the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization to man the various entry points.

Speaking Thursday, September 18th at the Ministry Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism on Capitol Hill during a regular press briefing, Minister Brown said people misconstrued the presence of the army at various entries and portrayed them negatively to the population in the midst of the Ebola fight.

The pronouncement comes in the wake of approval by President Barack Obama, to send 3,000 troops to Liberia to help combat the virus that has devastated the country and her neighbors.

According to the Information boss, the AFL will now focus its attention on providing logistical and engineering support to the National Ebola Taskforce in its ongoing fight to halt the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.

The Armed Forces of Liberia were involved in a recent shootout in West Point Township, which led to the death of a 16-year-old lad and another seriously wounded after angry residents there protested a government quarantine of the community. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has instructed the Minister of National Defense, Brownie Samukai, to investigate the incident.

Meanwhile, Minister Brown has reiterated that eradicating Ebola out of the country does not rest solely on the shoulders of the government, stressing that every citizen has a duty in the fight.

He assured government’s commitment with the help of international partners to combat the virus out of Liberia, saying, if any politician thinks that by criticizing the government in the fight against the Ebola virus will help them to win elections here, they are lying to themselves.