Shed Further Light on the Massacre and the Cover-Up

2005 MIGRANTS MASSACRE FIFTEEN YEARS OF LIES AND COVERUPS

Approximately 56 West African Migrants (44 from After reports of the incident emerged, Ghana, 9 from Nigeria, and others from Cote d’Ivoire, both Ghanaian and Gambian authorities Gambia, Senegal and Togo) are arrested in The express regret and agree to conduct a joint July 2005 July Gambia and killed. They had been detained by the 2005 July investigation into the matter. A team from Gambian army, navy, and police forces. both Governments is to investigate the A Ghanaian investigative Martin Kyere of Ghana manages to escape. circumstances, but the Gambian authorities proved unwilling to cooperate. team visits The Gambia to commence a joint probe. After the Gambia refuses, 2005 2006 March 2006 the team visits Senegal 2007 2008 A joint investigative team of the Economic Community of West 2009 African States (ECOWAS) and the United Nations (UN) concludes 2010 that the Gambian government is not “directly or indirectly Six bodies are returned

2011 April 2009 complicit” in the deaths and disappearances, blaming it on “rogue to Ghana, but families are 2012 elements” in Gambia’s security services “acting on their own”. skeptical of their identity. The 2013 Its findings are kept secret. others remain buried across 2014 October 2009 The Gambia and Senegal. 2015 Gambia and Ghana sign a The Ghanaian government announces that it has Memorandum of Understanding “tasked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the acknowledging that the Gambian 2016 Attorney-General’s Department to study” the case. May 2018 May government was not complicit 2009 July The government of Gambia pledges to cooperate in the killings, but would make with any investigation by Ghana. contributions to the families as a 2017 humanitarian gesture. 2018

A report by Human Rights Watch and TRIAL International shows that the migrants were detained by Yahya Jammeh’s 2019 closest associates in the army, the navy, and the police, and then summarily executed by the Junglers, a paramilitary 2018 May unit operating under Yahya Jammeh’s orders. The Gambian government also had destroyed key evidence before the UN/ECOWAS team arrived.

TO THIS DAY, ONLY 6 BODIES HAVE BEEN Five UN human rights monitors request the UN and RETURNED TO GHANA. ECOWAS to release their 2009 report. Its contents Three direct perpetrators of the massacre, MANY DOUBTS REMAIN AS TO THEIR IDENTITY.

are still confidential. 2019 January all serving members of the Gambian Armed Forces previously assigned to the Junglers, testify publicly before the Gambia 2019 July Truth, Reconciliation, and Reparations Commission (TRRC) that they and 12 other VICTIMS AND THEIR RELATIVES Junglers carried out the killings on Yahya