Gambian Jammeh-era victims seek ‘real justice’ beyond reparations

Banjul, The Gambia – Yusupha Mbye’s mother pushes his wheelchair slowly across the tiled compound of their home in Kanifing, about 11km (seven miles) from The Gambia’s capital, Banjul. The late-afternoon sun hangs low as she pauses to straighten a wrap over his legs, stopping briefly to catch her breath.

“He has been in this wheelchair since he was a teenager,” she told Al Jazeera, wiping away tears. “Twenty-six years later, I am still caring for him.”

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Mbye, now 42, was just 17 when Gambian paramilitary officers opened fire on students protesting against police brutality in April 2000. At least 14 people were killed and scores were injured in one of the darkest episodes of former president Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year rule.

Mbye survived, but the bullet that struck him caused permanent damage to his spinal cord, leaving him unable to walk.

“I am depressed at this stage of my life,” he told Al Jazeera, reflecting on how that single moment decades ago shapes and restricts his life.

“I cannot do anything for myself without the help of my family.”

Mbye’s father, who supported him for years, died in 2013. “My father wanted to see Jammeh face justice. He died without seeing that,” he said quietly.

Now, his ageing mother fears she too may pass away before the former government officials who are responsible for her son’s injuries are held accountable.

“As a mother, it is painful to see your son in this condition,” she said. “I am afraid I might die without him seeing justice.”

A country confronting its past

Yahya Jammeh ruled The Gambia from 1994 to 2017 after seizing power in a military coup. His government was later accused of widespread human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual violence and enforced disappearances.

After Jammeh fled into exile in Equatorial Guinea in 2017, The Gambia established the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) to investigate crimes committed during his rule.

The commission documented thousands of violations, identified perpetrators and the crimes they committed, and issued far-reaching recommendations, including reparations for victims and criminal prosecutions.

While some perpetrators have since been prosecuted, others are in prison awaiting trial, while some, like Jammeh, are outside the country and out of the reach of local courts.

To implement the TRRC’s recommendations on compensating victims, the government created the Reparations Commission, which last month began making payments for abuses committed between 1994 and 2017.

Compensation is being issued in phases, starting with the earliest violations. The government has allocated 40 million dalasi (about $550,000) to fund the programme over five years.

Badara Loum, the chairperson of the Reparations Commission, told Al Jazeera that reparations are a core part of The Gambia’s transitional justice process.

But for many survivors, money alone is not justice.

“There can be no real justice while Jammeh lives comfortably abroad,” Mbye said.

Victims say what they need is for those responsible to answer for their crimes.

Families living with loss

Mamudou Sillah and his family have spent decades waiting for justice.

His brother, Cadet Amadou Sillah, was among nearly two dozen soldiers executed in November 1994 after being accused of plotting a coup against Jammeh. The TRRC eventually concluded that Amadou was not involved but had been made a scapegoat.

“Thirty-two years later, our wounds are as fresh as if it happened yesterday,” his brother told Al Jazeera, speaking at his home in Madiana, about 35km (21 miles) from Banjul.

Amadou, who was 26 when he died, was the family’s main breadwinner. Without his brother’s support, Sillah was forced to abandon school and take on work at 17 to support the family.

“He was our hero,” the now 53-year-old said. “He took care of everyone in the family.”

After Amadou’s execution, Sillah said his family faced harassment and social isolation from their community, forcing them to leave their village and relocate to Madiana.

As part of the TRRC reparations process, the family has received 600,000 dalasi ($8,170) in payments and are among the first beneficiaries of the programme. But Sillah says the money does not replace accountability.

“Yes, money is important,” he said. “But what we really want is justice. We want Jammeh and everyone responsible for my brother’s murder to face it.”

Compensation without closure

Mbye was among those who received monetary reparations in 2020 as part of an interim disbursement by the TRRC. He was awarded 19,000 dalasi ($259) but returned the money.

“I needed medical treatment, not cash,” he said. “That amount could not change anything for me.”

He said the TRRC once sent him and four other injured survivors to Turkiye for medical treatment, but that programme ended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“To this day, I have not received the treatment I need,” he said, explaining that he requires a spinal cord replacement procedure and backbone surgery.

Mbye told Al Jazeera that when President Adama Barrow took office in 2017, he promised to cover their medical care.

“He personally told us he would take care of our medical bills. Ten years later, we have heard nothing,” Mbye said.

Al Jazeera reached out to the Gambian government to ask about the reparations and medical care for survivors, but they did not respond.

Though Mbye returned his initial payment, he has since submitted his details to the Reparations Commission and is awaiting new compensation. He says all he needs is treatment to be able to walk again.

When justice comes too late

As survivors wait for answers, some victims of Jammeh-era abuses never lived to receive reparations or see accountability.

There were numerous political detentions during the previous administration. Though deaths in custody were not systematically documented, some prisoners – like prominent opposition figure Ebrima Solo Sandeng – were killed. For those who were released, and their families, it has been a journey of recovery and a search for accountability.

Femi Peters was a political activist jailed for organising a 2009 pro-democracy rally calling for electoral reforms under Jammeh’s rule. At the time, Amnesty International campaigned for his release, warning that he was at risk of human rights abuses.

Peters was released in 2010 and spent years after that awaiting justice. But he eventually died in 2018, under the new administration, still waiting. His son, Olufemi Peters, said the loss still shapes their lives.

“No amount of reparations will bring my father back,” he told Al Jazeera. “The only closure is seeing those responsible held accountable.”

Similarly, Nogoi Njie was arrested, tortured and imprisoned in 2016 after attending a peaceful protest against Jammeh’s rule. She died in 2023.

Her daughter, Isatou Ceesay, said the state’s delays in holding Jammeh and others to account remain devastating.

“It hurts deeply that my mother died without seeing justice,” she said. “Justice feels too slow.”

More than a dozen Jammeh-era victims have died while awaiting justice for the abuses they suffered, The Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations says.

Chairperson Loum said next of kin are entitled to receive compensation on their behalf.

Holding Jammeh accountable

Bringing Jammeh to justice remains a complex challenge.

He has lived in exile in Equatorial Guinea since 2017, beyond the reach of Gambian courts. Not much is known about his life there, although he occasionally sends WhatsApp audio messages to his supporters at home.

His political party, the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC), continues to enjoy significant support. Although the former president does not have much political influence in The Gambia, a segment of society, especially in his home region, maintains that he committed no crimes and should be allowed to live freely.

Still, momentum is slowly building to hold him to account.

In 2024, The Gambia passed laws creating a Special Prosecutor’s Office and Special Accountability Mechanisms. It aims to prosecute crimes identified by the TRRC and hold the main perpetrators to account, including Jammeh; Sanna Manjang, one of his enforcers responsible for much of the killing; Yankuba Touray, a former Jammeh ally who is already serving a life sentence; and others who remain at large in The Gambia, like the former vice president, Isatou Njie Saidy.

With support from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the country is also establishing a hybrid Special Tribunal involving Gambian and international judges, which intends to try perpetrators of rights violations, including Jammeh, if he ever returns to The Gambia.

Separately, international courts have acted. Switzerland sentenced former interior minister Ousman Sonko to 20 years in prison for torture and other crimes in 2023. Courts in Germany and the United States have also convicted former members of Jammeh’s paramilitary unit, “the Junglers”, such as Bai Lowe, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2022.

Kebba Jome, head of The Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations, which provides psychosocial support and legal advocacy to victims, said the tribunal has renewed hope among survivors.

“We are grateful ECOWAS supported this initiative,” he told Al Jazeera. “Victims must remain at the heart of the justice process.”

Founded in 2017, the centre has registered more than 1,500 victims. Photographs of many of them line its walls, a stark reminder of the country’s past.

Yet, Jome acknowledged that justice had already come too late for some.

“The deaths of victims waiting for accountability show how delayed justice can fail survivors,” he said.

Human rights lawyer Imran Darboe also welcomed the start of reparations but warned they cannot replace justice.

“Compensation is welcome,” he told Al Jazeera. “But without transparency, engagement and dignity, reparations risk becoming a transaction rather than a path to healing.”

Darboe said accountability efforts are growing at home and abroad.

“Justice may be slow,” he said, “but Jammeh is surrounded by accountability mechanisms. Exile is not impunity.”

Still waiting

According to the Reparations Commission, the TRRC identified 1,009 victims eligible for reparations. Of these, 248 have been fully compensated, while 707 have received partial payments.

Many families are still waiting, including those of the 54 West African migrants who were arrested in The Gambia on their way to Europe in 2005, and executed by Jammeh’s Junglers.

For Sillah, whose brother died as a result of false, unjust accusations, closure remains incomplete.

In 2019, the government exhumed the remains of soldiers executed in 1994, including those of Amadou Sillah. But the remains are still being held in a Banjul morgue, pending use as evidence in future tribunal cases.

“We want to bury our brother properly,” Sillah told Al Jazeera, lamenting that even their mother died in 2024, still waiting. “We want closure,” he said.

As The Gambia continues its fragile transition from dictatorship to democracy, survivors say the nation’s struggle now is to confront its past before time runs out.

Mbye sits quietly as his mother prepares to wheel him back inside as the cool evening sets in.

“People keep saying justice is coming,” he said softly. “But will it ever arrive?”

Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: aljazeera.com