Gambians seek justice after Jammeh's 22-year rule

Families of people who went missing or were persecuted during the 22-year rule of the former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh are now seeking justice.

The exact number of people who were killed extra-judicially or were declared missing during Jammeh's rule is unknown. The families and relatives of the victims demand answers from Adama Barrow's new government, with the hope of finding their loved ones.

According to Sabrina Mahtani, Amnesty International's West Africa Anglophone Researcher, Barrow's government "has a massive obligation to look into all these cases of people who disappeared, people who have been arbitrarily arrested."

"He left for work but didn't come back home after his shift ended, we went to look for him at his place of work and the police station, but could not find my husband. Later, we read newspaper reports, and heard news on the radio that he was captured and taken to prison," said Fatou Jabang, a missing person's wife.

Madi Ceesay who is one of the survivors of Jammeh's brutality, was arrested for publishing what Jammeh considered an unfavourable news report and his newspaper was shut down.

Ceesay, a former political detainee, said, "They were just beating us anyhow. They beat, they kick."

Jammeh, who was in office since he led the coup in 1994, lost the elections in December 2016. But he refused to step down and declared a state of emergency in January. Later, under the military threat of the African Union and the West African regional body ECOWAS, he agreed to step down, and left the country in January 2017.

TRT World's Fidelis Mbah has this report from the capital city, Banjul.