Legal advisors to the Gambian Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), say the identification of the Ghanaian victims in the 2005 migrant killings has been a major challenge in the work of the Commission.
Mariama Singhateh, counsel to Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) told Asaase News’s Wilberforce Asare, in an exclusive interview in Banjul that for compensations to be paid to deserving families of the victims, including the 44 Ghanaians, there is the need to identify those victims for the said compensations to be paid to their respective families.
Reparations
Answering a question on whether or not the TRRC made specific recommendations on what kind of reparations ought to be given to the families of the victims, Singhateh said, “It is quiet tricky because even with the 44 Ghanaians, they have not been properly identified.”
“It is only a few of them that have been identified as of now. We do not know their families yet so it is only a number of them that we know their families by virtue of one of them that escaped on that day and he came to the TRRC and testified, that is Martin Kyere and Eric Yaw as well. They were able to identify some individuals but some, we are unable to say this is the person that was executed in The Gambia,” Singhateh said.
Further investigations
To address this issue, the TRRC lawyer noted that the Commission decided to recommend to the Gambian government and the Attorney General of Gambia, to institute further investigations by soliciting help from other countries with the expertise needed to carry out such complex investigations.
“When the incident first occurred, there was a joint investigation into this issue but they didn’t go far.
“Given that there are different nationalities involved, we need help with the identification of those nationalities, and also given that we were not able to identify the location where these individuals were buried because most of the junglers that testified could not lead us to that location,” Singhateh said.
“We do not have the expertise to actually investigate further with respect to finding out where they were indeed buried. That is why we need additional help,” she added.
Gambia migrant hub
The Gambia has been a country of destination and transit for economic migrants from the West African sub-region for decades.
In the past 20 years, it also became a significant country of origin for migrants and refugees travelling to Europe and North America.
Economic hard times have also resulted in persistent migration, and The Gambia is proportionally one of the biggest exporters of economic migrants to Europe.
The number of migrants from West Africa seeking asylum in European Union member states almost quadrupled in the last two decades and countless more have taken the perilous journey through North Africa, arriving in Europe on overcrowded boats through the Mediterranean Sea.
Perilous journeys on small boats in the rough waters of the Atlantic Ocean for greener pastures became an unprecedented phenomenon in West Africa.
African youth from these shores embarked on these dangerous journeys. Many died in transit, while others became stranded in Libya and other countries in and around the Sahara Desert.
The phenomenon became known as the “back way” – a term derived from the irregular nature of the migration.
TRRC findings
The TRRC on 25 November 2021, presented its report on work done concerning the killings of some 67 migrants in Mali in July 2005.
The opening pages of the report states, “On July 22 2005, about 67 economic migrants from West Africa – a large proportion from Ghana started their journey with the hope of getting to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.”
“They were told that they had to come to The Gambia to board a boat that would take them to Europe. Unfortunately, when they arrived, they were abandoned by their agent in The Gambia”.
“Eric Nana Yaw Owusu Ansah, a Ghanaian national who was among the West African migrants who arrived in The Gambia, recalled in detail the events leading to the massacre of his ill-fated companions,” TRRC report read.
“In 2003, this witness left Ghana and went to Senegal to find a route to Europe hoping for a better life. In May or June 2005, Mark Essien and Daniel Amankwa, both Ghanaians told the witness that they knew an American man named “Taylor” who
would arrange for them to be transported to Europe. Through further intermediaries, the witness met Lamin Tunkara who told him that he could arrange a boat and sponsor their journey to Europe.”
“Under this arrangement, the witness and two of his companions first needed to take a boat to The Gambia where they would connect to the boat which would take them to Europe”.
Yahya Jammeh guilty
The Commission concludes that Yahya Jammeh, the former President of Gambia, is responsible for the killings, enforced disappearance and torture of more than 67 West African economic migrants by giving direct orders to the Junglers to summarily execute them in July 2005.
Yahya Jammeh is also responsible for subsequently organizing and coordinating, through the state apparatus under his control, a massive and systematic cover-up campaign in order to exonerate himself from responsibility for these crimes.
Wilberforce Asare
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