“They have guns and weapons—how can we resist?”

What a shame.

Demolition teams wielding axes and machetes this week smashed up popular beach bars, one still bearing a sign saying “Paradise,” as part of an improvement scheme to develop tourism in Sierra’s Leone’s capital Freetown.

Truckloads of soldiers and armed police stood guard and pushed back journalists as demolition workers reduced illegal bars to rubble along a five-km (three-mile) stretch of Lumley Beach in the West African state’s seaside capital on Wednesday.

“They have destroyed our lives,” waiter Papa Yansanhe, 28, told Reuters in front of the ruins of the Paradise Beach Bar.

“Now I have nothing, no job, and against these vigilantes, soldiers and police I can’t do anything. They have guns and weapons—how can we resist?”

Of course, the reason that people don’t want to visit Sierra Leone is not the beach bars… it’s the roving bands of lethal thugs.