Police in the Gambia have strongly denied having a role in the rumoured death of an unnamed mother and her new born baby during last week’s riots in Brikama.
On Wednesday officers were deployed to the street of the town after thousands of youths tried to occupy the administrative office of West Coast Region to demand better services.
Police described the gathering as illegal and clashed with the youths who set up road barricades and set fire to car tyres.
In the cause of the disturbance, it was rumoured that the heavy-handed police response had led to the demise of a mother and her newly born baby.
However, police a police spokesman said the woman’s death had nothing to do with their operations in the town.
“While we express our deepest condolences to the bereaved family, we wish to inform the general public that her demise has no connections to Police operations in Brikama on the 24th July 2019,” said Superintendent David Kujabi of the Gambia Police Force.
He said officers have visited the Brikama Health Centre where the alleged death was rumoured to have happened but were told by staff that no such death was registered.
He added that woman’s family members were also contacted and they made no such claims in their discussion with the police.
Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police. Therefore, maintain law and order but with dignity and respect. Certain brutalities are too alien to us Gambians.