Survivors and families of victims in the Gambia massacre are threatening to picket at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ghana should the government fail to support them in their calls for an immediate release of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission’s (TRRC) report.
In 2019, when the TRRC was commissioned to investigate the massacre, the “Junglers” a unit of Gambian soldiers publicly testified before the TRRC to have carried out the killings on former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s orders.
The report which was expected to be released in July earlier this year, was postponed until 30 September. However, in September, the TRRC said the release of the report had been postponed indefinitely.
The Jammeh2Justice Coalition of Ghana is therefore calling on the TRRC to as a matter of urgency release the report. Already showing a disposition of their trust in the government of Ghana, Martin Kyere, the spokesperson for the survivors, and a survivor himself, has warned of a possible picketing at the ministry to register their displeasure.
“If nothing has at all happened, the Foreign Minister should at least call the families and victims and say ‘okay we have seen those who killed the families and victims, so this is what government is going to do, so the families should have patience we are going to work on that’, but nothing, nothing has been done, so now, we are telling everyone… that we are going to storm the Foreign Ministry, if by one week, nothing has been done, I will carry the old women, widows and children to the Ministry, I myself will do that, I will do that,” Kyere served notice.
He said efforts have to be made by the Ghanaian government 16 years on, to win justice for the Ghanaians.
On 22 July 2005, Gambia security forces arrested migrants who were bound for Europe, after their boat landed in The Gambia on a suspicion of their involvement in an attempted coup d’état. About 44 Ghanaians, nine Nigerians, two Togolese and some nationals of Cote D’Ivoire and Senegal and a Gambian, were killed in Gambia with their bodies deposited in wells.
Loretta Timah
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