Armed soldiers in Dunes Mall – public feels it was “plain bad taste”

Members of the public described it as bad taste an incident at the Dunes Mall on Saturday when armed soldiers of the Namibia Defense Force (NDF) entered the mall with assault rifles and patrolling the area as part of the ongoing national anti-crime operation Operation Hornkrantz.

“This was distasteful to say the least. These soldiers were intimidating just by their presence. The mall is a place where families gather. We don’t want an environment where eight or ten soldiers with assault rifles in the hand and in combat uniforms walking shoulder to shoulder through the mall.
Children got scared and people really thought this is a police state. What did tourists think of this?”, asked a visitor to the mall who contacted Namib Times.
“The mall is safe. There is security personnel on duty and the place is covered by cameras. Although any crime prevention project is much welcomed, we must all know the boundaries. Moreover, with the bad publicity currently ongoing around the deployment of NDF soldiers on crime operations, the people planning these actions really need to take a second look at how they do things”, this person fumed.