In response to several murders that have occurred in the past 10 days, the minister of home Affairs and Police ‘Kareem Musa’ has declared a state of emergency for the following areas in Belize City. (see Statutory Instrument & map demarcation of areas)
Very early this morning the police and its special gang-units fanned out in various gang-areas of the city and so far approximately 30 men have been detained and will be on remand for a minimum of 30 days.
Both the commissioner of police ‘Chester Williams’ and the minister of police indicated that the SOE will not infringe on the law abiding citizens and that this was a last resort action to counter the stream of murders between ‘feuding-gangs’.
During the press briefing the commissioner said he was dissatisfied with the fact that a news outlet (CH 7) had announced a few hours before the declaration of the SOE that an SOE was going to happen at midnight July 27th. The commissioner said that it enabled several gang-members to elude apprehension that morning.
As a result, the GI3 Unit of the Belize Police Dept. issued wanted posters for 15 gang-affiliated persons.
