More than 30 Gambians are demanding back their plots of land seized by exiled former President Yahya Jammeh in Batokunku village.

Jammeh was accused of seizing their plots of land which he turned into a huge gardening field.

The victims, most of whom live in the United States and Europe, said they would allow the gardeners to continue work on their plots but want to secure them by erecting fences to avoid trespassers and land grabbers. 

Assan Jallow, a US-based Gambian, who is one of the victims along with six of his family members, said they lost their homes after Jammeh sent armed soldiers to takeover their properties without a court order. 

“Our family is about six and we all have a plot here and we bought these plots around 2006 – 7 and all were fenced completely. But then one day Yahya Jammeh just came and dismantled the houses,” he said.

However, he claimed that some top officials in the Barrow’s administration with vested interests are delaying the return of their lands.

“But when Jammeh left and the new government came in power, we were meant to believe that there is an established land commission who asked the state to return our lands but there are certain people who we believe are on top who are delaying the process.

He complained that the matter has been dragged on for far too long since the coming of the Barrow government five years ago.

“One thing we suspected is that they want to use these people to work here so that anytime we plan to come and start work here, they would say no you cannot because these people are working here because it is where they depend for their livelihood,” he added.

“We want to make it clear that we don’t have problems with that, anytime we fence our plots, we will put proper boreholes and allow them to continue working here.”

According to Mr Jallow, they were requested to take their land documents to the governor’s office, but added that “since we took our documents, we have not heard anything positive and any door, we knock we don’t get any positive news.

“Now, we also say that since they don’t want to listen to us regarding our properties, we are going ahead to fence our plots of land that brought us here. 

“What we need is to secure our plots of land to avoid any future problem because we’ve already lost it with Yahya Jammeh and now, we just not going to sit back and let them use that strategy over us.”

Ajaratou Mariam Jobe, another victim, said they have reported the matter to the Ministry of Justice and the now defunct Janneh Commission, adding they only “want to identify the plots before other people come and take our plots of land because they are our properties, we have spent a lot of money on the plots.

“I have a plot of land here long time and I developed it and fenced it but I was called one day that they have destroyed the homes.

“When I came here and I found uniformed men with guns destroying the homes with bulldozers, and I asked them ‘why are they destroying the homes’ and they replied: ‘it’s an order from the top’”. 

Reporting by Adama Makasuba .