The police in the Omusati Region are calling on young people in the Ruacana Constituency to work closely with law enforcement in the fight against crime.

The call was made during a youth engagement on crime prevention held in Oshifo, Ruacana Constituency, on Monday.

The discussions focused on youth involvement in crime and ways of strengthening cooperation between young people and the police.

The head of Community Policing in the Omusati Region, Anna Kunga, says the initiative aims to involve young people in preventing crime and sharing information with the police.

"We visited the Ruacana Constituency; together with the Ministry of Youth, the aim was to create youth forums against crime. We just want the youth to be involved in how to prevent crimes and give information to the police so that we can eliminate criminal activities among the youth."

Senior Inspector Kunga says police statistics show that many of those arrested for various crimes are young people, including suspects linked to drug-related offences and stock theft.

The Directorate of Youth is engaging young people across all 12 constituencies in the region.

Youth Officer Taina Fikili says five young people from each constituency will be selected to form a youth structure focused on crime prevention.

"After the meeting, we selected five youths that are going to be representatives of the Ruacana Constituency. And this mobilisation we are starting today from Ruacana, and it is going to end on Friday the 25th at Okahao Constituency. Yeah, we hope all the young people are going to be representatives in each constituency with five youths in each constituency, and they will form Youth Against Crime Omusati region."

Unemployment and poverty remain major concerns in the constituency.

Chairperson of the Ruacana Constituency Youth Forum, Abraham Ndemupita, says some local youth are being left without job opportunities, as casual work is given to young people from other regions.

"I need maybe the ministry also. They must sit down with a lot of stakeholders, like those big companies and even the government itself. Let me give an example: we have a mine there, and those people need casual workers just to sweep grasses, but they are going to take other youth from the Ohangwena region and other youth from Oshikoto. I'm not saying they are not Namibian; they must come and do jobs but at least have qualifications to do jobs in Ruacana. How can you call someone from far away to come work casual work? While we have a lot of youth here, there you are killing the youth within the community."

Ndemupita is also calling on young people to work with the police in tackling drug dealing.