02 July 2016•Update: 11 July 2016
By Mark N. Mengonfia
MONROVIA, Liberia
Responsibility for the security of Liberia was handed over to local forces in a ceremony Friday evening that brought 13 years of UN peacekeeping to an end.
“It's our country. No one can do it for us. No one can protect us from ourselves,” President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said at a ceremony at Monrovia City Hall.
She urged Liberians to support the police and military as they take over from the UN Mission in Liberia, which was deployed after more than 14 years of bloodshed that is estimated to have seen up to 250,000 people killed.
Ten years after the deployment, the country was hit by an Ebola epidemic that left more than 4,800 dead.
Sirleaf said $20 million had been set aside in the budget for security in addition to $10 million to cover the UN withdrawal. Around 1,200 UN troops will remain in a supporting role.
