Over fifty Farato families were left homeless after their houses were demolished on Thursday by bailiffs from the Sheriff Division of the High Court.

The High Court in Banjul had ruled that the families had illegally built their houses on hectares of land owned by Manor Real Housing Estate. The bailiffs were accompanied by a large contingent of officers from the Police Intervention Unit.

The officer in charge of the demolition team said the plots of land were the houses were built, were illegally sold to the affected families. He said the owner, Manor Real Housing Estate, had gone to the high court to seek possession of their properties and the court had ruled in favour of them.

He said he understood the plights of the affected families but they were executing a lawful court order.

However Omar Ndow who was affected by the demolition exercise said they received no eviction notice from the high court and the officers refused to give them reasons for the demolition.  

“I was sitting with my sister when we saw a group of people coming towards us. They asked us to take out all our belongings from our rooms so that the demolition team can start destroying our house.   

“All what I have worked for is invested into this house, so losing it in a single day will create another setback for me and my family. We have nothing to do right now, but to rely on God.”

The Farato land dispute has been ongoing for several years now. In 2017, some youths of Farato had a violent scuffle with the bailiffs when they attacked them during a demolition. Scores of people were injured and cars were set ablaze during the ensuing riot.

“The Gambia has a problem with its land administration system. We have Alkalos selling the same land to different people and when the cases are taken to court the poor usually lose out. Two of my sisters are victims of this, they lost their investment and a cousin also lost his land around the same area in Farato. How long will this continue to happens, how long will the poor lose out just because they cannot hire the best of lawyers. They lose land that they bought legally and have no compensations. The real culprits are the ‘fake’ land dealers, sometimes even Alkalos and government officials.

We need to regulate our Land Administration system, Alkalos should be made to pay if they sign documents for the same land to different people. Unless and until we have people take responsibility and start doing it right the poor will be suffering and if they decide to do it their own way, so be it,” Samba Bah, a Gambian based in America wrote at the time.