The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, has said former President Yahya Jammeh’s death squad, the Junglers, committed the worst human rights abuses in the country.

TRRC was established in 2017 to look into human rights violation that occurred during the Jammeh regime from July 1994 to January 2017.

“The Commission paid careful and thorough attention to the NIA as it was the entity, together with the murderous squad called the Junglers who were during the mandate period of the TRRC (i.e., July 1994 to January 2017), responsible for the greatest number of gross violations and abuses of human rights in The Gambia,” TRRC Chair, Dr. Lamin J. Sise said in a statement, as the commission kicked off its last public hearing.

“As we begin today what could be the last month of the public hearings of the Commission, we would first recapitulate the highlights of the two themes we examined during our last three sessions. In view of time constraints, we delayed review of the highlights of the two consecutive sessions devoted to the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) which ran from 22 October, 2020 to 23 February, 2021 and was part of the general theme on Institutional Hearings.”

“We hope to finish our final report, and submit our findings and recommendations to the Government of the Gambia during the first week of July. Ultimately, it is the TRRC’s firm conviction that all victims of human rights violations that occurred between July 1994 and January 2017 will get the justice they deserve,” he added.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba