Assan Suwareh, a victim of the April 10/11 2000 students’ demonstration, has told the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) how he nearly died that day after being shot in the stomach by the police.

Mr. Suwareh, who was 17 at the time and a student of Gambia Technical High School, narrated his traumatic ordeal before the TRRC on Wednesday.

He said he joined the students protesters at Westfield after their school bus was stopped at the Gambia Technical Training Institute (GTTI) by other students including GAMSU leaders who were staging a peaceful protest.

The protest, he added, was called to demand justice for two of their fellow students, Binta Manneh and Ebrima Barry, who were assaulted by the security forces and the latter died as a result of the incident.

He said there were about 500 students at the GTTI who all headed to Westfield chanting slogans and the names of Binta Manneh and Ebrima Barry.

Mr. Suwareh said the peaceful protest was disrupted when they met a group of heavily armed paramilitary personnel about 30 men.

He said the armed officers ordered them to disperse and when they refused started firing tear gas into the large crowd of about 500 students and beating them with batons.

He said the students threw stones in retaliation at the officers.

Mr. Suwareh said the then Minister of Interior, Ousman Badjie, intervened to calm the situation. He said they went with the former Interior Minister to GTTI and he had a discussion with the student leaders.

“I saw Mr. Ousman Badjie gesturing for the security officers to attack the students,” he said, adding that this was when the students were already in the GTTI Campus.

He said Badjie was frustrated with the reaction of the five student leaders who refused to call off the protest and ordered the security personnel to assault them.

“The paramilitary personnel were attacking the students. They were using their batons on the students. I saw them beating students. I saw them assaulting the students. I could hear the cries of both male and female students because I had already entered a classroom with some other students, and we locked the door,” he said.

The witness told the TRRC that when they escaped from the GTTI they ran into another group of students who were being chased by paramilitary officers at Ice-Man Junction.

He said the officers were using tear gas as well as the firing of live ammunition.

He said he ran away with many of the students from the area.

“I turned and I was also running. I was running and looking back. I saw one student running who was shot on his hand and he was using his other hand to hold the other hand. I was also shot on my stomach.

“There came a time when I struggled to breathe and I almost fell. So, I tried to run but I couldn’t. I almost collapsed. I took a few steps and then I fell down,” he said.

Mr Suwareh disclosed that he was picked by a private car and evacuated to the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH). He said in that vehicle, he met two other students who sustained gunshot wounds.

He said he was admitted at the Intensive Care Unit where he underwent an emergency operation to remove the bullet from his stomach.

He said although the surgery saved his life, he sustained infection because his internal organs were seriously affected which warranted the doctors to fix a pipe through his stomach to extract fluid.

“I was in pain throughout,” he recalled in tears.

He said the bullet damaged his right kidney and the gall bladder, adding that the doctor performed a second operation on him to fix his internal organs including his duodenum.

He said he was taken to Egypt together with two other student victims by the former Jammeh government for medical treatment. He said the government only paid for their one-month treatment whereas the remaining two months were paid by Gambians in the Diaspora.

Mr Suwareh, who now lives in the U.S.A, said that in Egypt, he was able to walk and he responded to treatment. He said they struggled to return to the Gambia after they were discharged from the hospital because of financial constraints.