An international inquiry is needed to look into the case of more than 50 West African migrants who were killed in The Gambia in 2005, eleven local and international human rights organisations said Tuesday.
Forty-four Ghanaians, nine Nigerians, two Togolese, nationals of Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, and a Gambian were summarily executed in Gambia and Senegal 15 years ago by a paramilitary death squad commanded by ex-Gambian president Yahya Jammeh.
“A credible international investigation is needed if we’re ever going to get to the bottom of the… massacre… and create the conditions to bring those responsible to justice,” Emeline Escafit, legal adviser at TRIAL International, said.
Last year, ex-members of Jammeh’s death squad testified publicly before Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation, and Reparations Commission that they carried out the killings on Jammeh’s orders.
The migrants, who were bound for Europe, were arrested after their boat landed in Gambia, suspected of involvement in a coup attempt on July 22, 2005 – coinciding with the 11th anniversary of the coup that brought Jammeh to power.
They were killed in Gambia or taken across the border into Senegal and shot and their bodies dumped in wells, according to ex-death squad members and rights groups.
Martin Kyere from Ghana, who escaped the killing, said he has been “fighting for 15 years for truth and for justice”.
“African leaders say that migrants should be treated with dignity, but for us, honoring their memory means justice, not lies and cover-ups,” Kyere said.
The crimes took place across Gambia and Senegal, involve victims from six countries, and a primary suspect, Yahya Jammeh, who now resides in Equatorial Guinea.
“If neither Gambia nor another country like Ghana would conduct a transnational investigation, they should support an independent inquiry that could investigate in all the countries concerned,” the group said in a statement on July 21, 2020.
In 2008, a joint ECOWAS and UN investigations blame the deaths on rogue elements of the Gambian army who “acted on their own”.
This theory was debunked in 2018 by new evidence linking Jammeh to the killings, and testimonies by former hitmen in 2019.
The ECOWAS and UN report has never been made public despite repeated requests by the victims and by five UN human rights monitors, rights groups said. The Gambian and Ghanaian governments have said that they do not have copies.
Reed Brody, senior counsel at Human Rights Watch, said the UN and ECOWAS can make a real contribution by releasing their report and working with Gambia, Ghana, and Senegal so that the victims can have justice.
“With Jammeh out of power, getting to the truth is just a matter of political will,” he said.
