Five Ghanaians will be testifying before The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) about the 2005 massacre of 56 West African migrants by security forces under the command of former president Yahya Jammeh. 

Their testimonies on the murder and enforced disappearance of the West African migrants including 44 Ghanaians will come 16 years after the shocking incident that strained relations between The Gambia and Ghana. 

According to witnesses the migrants were arrested in July 2005 and taken to the naval Head Quarters in Banjul. Security officials then divided the migrants into groups, and turned them over to the junglers, an armed unit directly connected to then President Jammeh, who summarily executed the migrants near Banjul and along the Senegal-Gambia border.

The TRRC lead counsel Essa Faal told reporters that the Commission has been in contact with representatives of the organisation Jammeh to Justice, who have been campaigning on behalf of migrants families, on the plan public hearings into the 2005 massacre. 

“I have personally informed them that we would call five witnesses from Ghana and we have told them the type of witnesses we expect to call including [Martin] Okyere himself,” Mr Faal said.

Martin Okyere is the sole Ghanaian survivor of the 2005 killings of West African migrants by the Jammeh regime.

Mr Okyere had already asked the TRRC to subpoena high profile witnesses including former Gambian Interior Minister Ousman Sonko, former Inspect General of Police Ensa ‘Jesus’ Badjie, and the UN West Africa envoy Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas to testify at the TRRC.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba