Liberia Immigration Service (LIS) says it has dispatched "well-armed officers" to the frontier with neighboring Republic of Guinea following the apparent deposing by the military of President Alpha Conde on Sunday.
LIS is a member agency of Liberia's Joint Security overseeing immigration and the well-being of the country's land, sea and air entry points.
"The security situation in Guinea poses some threat to Liberia: a threat in Guinea is a potential threat in Liberia. So, the Commissioner General (of LIS) has just re-enforced the patrolling of the border. With the Border Patrol Unit, there should be regular foot-patrol and mobile patrol," spokesperson Col. Abraham Dorley told LINA Monday.
Not relating the number of troops deployed, Col. Dorley. However, says "we have a substantial number of officers that were trained and given firearms. So if [you] check at the borders with Guinea, Ivory Coast, there are officers there who are carrying long-range weapons and they were certified by the Liberia National Police Training Academy's command structure."
Still having Mr. Conde in detention, military strongman Mamady Doumbouya announced the closure of Guinea's borders, suspended that country's constitution, and put into effect a curfew.
The pronouncement, in part, means that cross-border trade activities between Liberia and Guinea will come to a standstill.
For Col. Dorley, LIS has generally taken due note of the development in Guinea, however falling short of indicating whether Liberia has in direct response shut its side of the border as well.
Instead, he says: "For now the Guinean borders have closed and for [us] we are monitoring our border."
Notwithstanding, he says the security agency is so far not aware of any situation where travelers or business persons may be stranded at any part of the Guinea-Liberia border in the aftermath of the political stalemate next door.
Liberia has porous borders with its neighbors in the Mino River basin, as the Weah-led government has been making efforts to perfect border security as officers of LIS are now fortified with arms and relevant other logistics.
President Conde was serving a controversial third term in office. He has since rejected the claim, arguing that the October 2020 poll was legitimate.
It is at the moment unclear what the next move by the Guinean military could be, as regional bloc ECOWAS and the African Union have threatened sanctions and called for the reinstatement of Mr. Conde.
