Nearly 70 Senegalese nationals have been expelled from The Gambia into Senegal’s Casamance region, BBC Afrique is reporting.
The measure comes only three days after a meeting held by the interior ministers of the two states in the Senegalese capital, Dakar.
Senegal played a key role in helping President Adama Barrow take power in January, forcing long-serving ruler Yahya Jammeh to go into exile.
The expulsions took place after undocumented Senegalese nationals were arrested by immigration authorities during spot checks in Banjul and its suburbs.
Last Wednesday, Gambian Interior Minister Mai Ahmad Fatty was in talks with his Senegalese counterpart Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo in a bid to work out a joint strategy to tackle cross-border crime, including drug trafficking and potential terror threats.
Gambia’s immigration director, Buba Sanyang, ordered the expulsions without allowing those detained to appeal, BBC Afrique is reporting.
It quotes a Gambian government source as saying that the expulsions are not a reflection of President Barrow’s immigration policy.
According to the source, no officials from the justice and interior ministries were consulted over the expulsions.
Before the expulsions, relations between Banjul and Dakar have been cordial. President Barrow was initially sworn in as president in Dakar, and Senegal sent troops to The Gambia to force Mr Jammeh out of power.
Mr Barrow defeated Mr Jammeh in elections, ending his 22-year rule.
However, Mr Jammeh tried to cling to power, alleging that the result was rigged.
BBC Africa
Confused again;
Stop and search for African’s against African’s.
Then,,,
The President ‘s spokesperson says this is not the President’s policy. Well whose policy is it ? Should we ask The President to ask Demba Jawo, to ask Mai Fatty to ask the Inspector General of Police, to ask the SIS ??????
A proper smack in the face for Macky Sall. Even the BBC are confused.
Incredibly embarrassing and a concern for governance. How can DG Immigration take decisions that DO NOT reflect Government Policy? How can deportations of ECOWAS Citizens, especially Senegalese, be effected without the President being informed, given the role Senegal played to facilitate his assumption to office? What the hell is going on in Banjul?
This is a mere conspiracy against Mr Sanyang, a humble hardworking gentle Gambian. He have no hand in all this. The instigators are there at the top. They will be exposed as soon as possible.
I am afraid we will be facing the same attitude when former president Diawara denied The Senegambia.
Children wow !!!!!!!! ///// come on now for heavens sake;
The weeping coast>>>hang your heads in shame. ” Suffer the little children to come to me” Gambians have a long tradition of taking good care of children orphaned from the street.
Obviously your newly made rich coalition,,,only have time to make love to their faces.
I am embarrassed.
Are they really children?? Parables will tell you; who shall make the children suffer so to strike back on them like lightening. Children, nonetheless, need a good growing from home.
However, shouldn’t the Ecowas governments introduce smart methods in order to facilitate keep track or perhaps records of the community’s citizens moving around member country to member country especially among them minors? Sophisticated borderline control is an integral part of improving security status of the ECOWAS as a whole. The authorities shouldn’t be running routine identification exercises ‘inside’ a civil society in my opinion. The practice has an undemocratic aspect at all angles.
The E.U, despite its – Freedom of Movement policy, has the tightest border control between its countries of thousands of miles borderlines. The borders, are the right place and time to run exercises as such in the latter. Countries of the community must invest in the right border control technology to help monitor borders with a hope to improve security levels in the ECOWAS.