Several residents of the Catholic Community were made homeless early Saturday morning March 30, 2024 following a Court eviction notice.
The notice came after a court ruled in favor of one Stanton Gaye as the original owner of the property.
The residents and Mr. Gaye identified as the legitimate owner of the land according to eye witnesses, have been allegedly in court for nearly a decade.
Men, women and children were coerced to leave their homes along with their belongings with apparently no hopes of securing shelter before nightfall.
According to one of the victims while in tears, she got the disputed land since 2008 when it was totally a swamp land which she and her husband eventually dried up to make it a residential place.
According to some of the victims, Mr. Gaye allegedly plan to sell the land to the Fula community, something they described as sadden.
The eviction according to reports, will affect over six hundred people residing in the area. Earlier, some residents of the community mainly youth burned tires on the main road and held rocks, bottles and sticks, set up road blocks in an attempt to prevent the execution of the court order.
Stones throwing from the angry residents and the spraying of tear gas from the police to disburse the angry people were the order of the day.
The hour long protest also saw the closure of businesses, the blocking of Catholic Hospital main entrance as well as fear amongst neighboring Sophie Community residents.
Ushered by the court sheriff, residents’ belongings were thrown outside followed by the demolition of their structures value at hundreds thousands of United States Dollars.
Meanwhile, some residents were arrested by the police in connection to the rioting, especially the stoning of the riot police who came to execute the court’s mandate. However, some of those arrested by the police claimed that they were innocent as the arrests were allegedly carried out randomly.
