Activists said they have garnered new evidences in the 2005 killings in The Gambia of 50 West African migrants.
Prominent international human rights groups, Human Rights Watch and TRIAL International, have gathered evidences on the massacre, the activists said in a statement.
The information on the findings will be revealed at a press conference on Thursday May 17 at the victims centre located in Senegambia behind the Guarantee Trust Bank.
“The Campaign to Bring Yahya Jammeh and his Accomplices to Justice (#Jammeh2Justice) and the Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations (Victims’ Center) have the pleasure to invite you to a press conference to discuss new findings by Human Rights Watch and TRIAL International regarding the massacre of over 50 West African migrants and one Gambian in The Gambia in 2005,” the group said in a statement.
The issues will be discussed by Marion Volkmann, Coordinator of the #Jammeh2Justice Campaign; Ayesha Jammeh, Adama Tunkara – widow of Lamin Tunkara, the Gambian national who was killed along the West African migrants and Madi Jobarteh, TANGO – Advocacy coordinator of the #Jammeh2Justice Campaign.
Also on the panel is Victim Center’s Ayesha Jammeh who met with Ghana President Akufo-Addo and the families of the Ghanaian victims in April 2018.
Though Gambia government denied it had any hand in the killings of Ghanaians, former dictator Yahya Jammeh has used pensioners’ funds to compensate the families of Ghanaians who were killed in the country in 2005.
Jammeh’s one time secretary general told the Commission of Inquiry probing the former ruler that he has used $500,000 of pensioners’ funds to compensate Ghanaians allegedly killed in Gambia by his agents who thought the men were mercenaries.
The killed Ghanaians were found in the Gambian coastal villages of Brufut and Ghana Town (named for its predominantly Ghanaian population).
Since then a number of Jammeh’s former military aides have indicated that ex ruler himself ordered the hit, suspecting the immigrants to be mercenaries.
The incident caused a huge diplomatic rift between the two West African countries, prompting Ghanaian authorities to seek explanation from Banjul but nothing of substance was forthcoming.