Basadi reaps major rewards

Basadi reaps major rewards Police operations clean up across the country Operation Basadi, launched and completed by the Namibian police netted major gains for crime prevention and the safety and security of women and children. The Namibian police recently arrested 88 suspects that were wanted for rape, gender-based violence, murder, domestic violence and other crimes.

These arrests were made during Operation Basadi that was carried out by the police at the end of November.

The operation was targeting the arrest of wanted persons in connection with cases of violence against women and children.

According to a statement, the crimes that were focused on during the operation included rape, murder, kidnapping, common assault and assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm, online child sexual abuse and exploitation, human trafficking and other related crimes.

Of the 190 wanted suspects that police were targeting 88 were arrested during the operation.

These included ten rape suspects that were arrested out of the 23 persons wanted for rape. Also 22 suspects were arrested for assault to do grievous bodily harm out of the 61 wanted suspects.

One person was arrested for murder out of the 25 wanted suspects, while all five wanted suspects were arrested for domestic violence.

There were also three arrests made for escape from legal custody, and four people were arrested for attempted rape while two people were arrested for dealing in mandrax.

According to the police a total of 2 632 officials participated in the operation of which 2 152 were females and 480 were males.

These included officials from the Namibian Defence Force, municipal police services, Men and Women Network groups against crime, the gender, home affairs, agriculture and environment ministries, the Roads Authority and non-governmental organisations.

Furthermore other successes gained during the operation including 15 protection orders that were served, three warnings were given to women found drinking in the shebeens with babies, 23 minor children were found in shebeens and were taken to their parents and warned about the abuse of alcohol.

Furthermore 172 liquor outlets were visited and out of these 63 were closed while ten shebeen owners were warned not to sell liquor without a valid licence.

According to the statement 900 mobile road blocks were also conducted, 61 foot patrols were set up and 2 169 vehicles stopped and searched while 156 people were also

searched.

There were also 53 traffic tickets issued to the value of N$303 600 while 15 vehicles were impounded for expired licence discs and/or people without valid driver's licences.



ELLANIE SMIT