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Witnesses in the Gambia have come forward to offer testimony about the massacre of some 50 migrants in 2005, one of the most notorious atrocities to occur under former President Yahya Jammeh.
The former autocrat ruled the small West African state for 22 years before fleeing in January 2017 after losing a presidential election to relatively unknown Adama Barrow.
The Gambia subsequently established a Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC) to investigate rights violations from the Jammeh era.
He has heard testimony about torture, rape, death squads and state-sponsored witch hunts, among other alleged abuses, since the hearings began in 2019.
But on Wednesday, the commission began investigating one of the most infamous episodes of the Jammeh government: the alleged execution of around 50 migrants bound for Europe who were taken over by mercenaries in 2005.
The hearings devoted to the massacre are expected to last several weeks and will feature testimony from the only known survivor, a citizen of Ghana named Martin Kyere.
Testifying on Thursday, the former Deputy Director of the Gambia’s National Intelligence Agency, Gibril Ngore Secka, said he witnessed the migrants being beaten by security forces.
Secka added that he had doubts that they were mercenaries, but that his concerns were “put aside.”
A banner reads “Never again” as a police gang acts for the country’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission. By Claire BARGELES (AFP) “The response was not very pleasant,” said the former intelligence officer, explaining that one of the security forces men wore a sleeveless robe adorned with traditional amulets or ‘jujus’.
In a statement this week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the massacre constituted the “greatest loss of life” under Jammeh.
‘Manna from heaven’
However, the details about the massacre are unclear.
Gambia map. By afp (AFP) Human Rights Watch put the number of victims at more than 50, with 44 believed to be Ghanaians, as well as other Senegalese, Togolese and Ivorian migrants.
The victims reportedly traveled by boat from the Senegalese coastal city of Saly, south of the capital Dakar, and arrived in the Gambian city of Barra on July 22, 2005, according to the NGO, before being arrested.
The soldiers then transported the migrants to the capital, Banjul, and divided them into smaller groups.
On the night of July 23, soldiers reportedly killed eight of the migrants with axes and machetes on a beach south of Banjul, the NGO said.
About a week later, the remaining captives were allegedly taken near Jammeh’s hometown of Kanilai, on the southern border with Senegal, and shot.
Kyere escaped by jumping out of a truck the soldiers used to transport migrants and staggering through a forest.
Secka, the intelligence officer, surprised the truth panel Thursday when he presented a list of the migrants’ names.
“Manna from heaven,” said lead attorney Essa Faal, who had been questioning the former spy, in surprise.
Secka explained that he had kept the list because he believed there would one day be an investigation into the matter.
“My faith in my religion made me believe that one day something like this will happen,” he said, referring to the truth commission.
In July 2019, former members of the military told the TRRC that Jammeh personally ordered the 2005 massacre.
There are numerous calls for the former dictator, who fled to Equatorial Guinea, to return to the Gambia to face trial.
Gambian President Adama Barrow defeated Jammeh in the 2016 elections. The Gambia subsequently established a Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC) to investigate the rights violations of the Jammeh era. By ISSOUF SANOGO (AFP) Yet he retains a large following in the former British colony of roughly two million people, with some wanting his return to active politics.
The TRRC is expected to hold its final hearings this year.
