Bakau is now emptied and desolated, a bereaved woman who lost her sister and nephew on the perilous sea journey to Europe tells Gambiana.

The coastal town has been struck by another tragedy with scores of deaths as another wooden boat transporting dozens of youth to Europe capsized at sea last week. 

“There are few left in Bakau now. All our young people have left and many of them have died on this backway journey. Even our girls are dying in this way because they are hopeless. Even my own sister and her toddler son both died on this backway journey. This is very hard,” she adds.

The Gambia government has promised measures to tackle the irregular migration – which has forced thousands of Gambians to embark on the journey in the past years. But so many of them lost their lives.

She appeals to the government to take tougher action “against this backway journey with better solutions to ensure young people of this country stay.”

“As you can see the young people around are all jobless. And this is a major factor driving young people to embark on this journey,” she adds.

The Gambian President Adama Barrow last week told the UN General Assembly to come up with pragmatic solutions towards irregular migration, which he described as a global “complex issue” that needs Al hands on deck to curb.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba