MONROVIA, Liberia – The Liberia National Police introduced safety measures for the Decoration Day celebrations across the country on Wednesday.

Sam Collins, the police spokesman, said officers of the LNP would be posted at strategic points to ensure that Ebola preventive measures were followed.

‘’We will make sure that all of our commercial drivers adhere to some of these measures,” he said. “Most especially, taxi drivers will have [no more than] three passengers at the back and the bus drivers are to observe that one person must be seated on a seat.’’

Collins emphasized that the police will be very vigilant in making sure that these protocols are followed.

In addition, he noted that the police will be carrying out regular breath testing and anyone caught above the legal blood alcohol concentration limit will be issued a ticket and the vehicle impounded.

‘’We have already introduced what we called squat checkpoints to make sure that we control the free flow of traffic from one point to another,’’ Collins said.

Furthermore, Collins said no vehicle will be allowed to enter the hotspots like the Palm Grove Cemetery in Central Monrovia in an effort to reduce congestion.

He stressed that patrol officers would be deployed at all the main cemeteries like the JCN Howard Cemetery, Duport Road, Caldwell and the Monrovia-Kakata Highway to minimize the commotion that usually occurs at grave sites.

Decoration Day is a national holiday celebrated in Liberia on the second Wednesday of March. On this day, people remember the dead by the cleaning and decorating their tombs and graves. It was approved and inaugurated by the Legislature on Oct. 24, 1916.

Featured image courtesy of Cameron Zohoori.