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Gambia: Gov’t To Assist Returning ‘Backway Migrants’

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(JollofNews) – Gambia’s Information minister Demba Jawo has reassured youths returning from Libya that they will not be left to fend for themselves in the streets.

A large number of Gambians who were left stranded in Libya after failing to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe are being flown back to Banjul thanks to the International Organisation of Migration (IOM).

The migrants left the Gambia with very high expectations but voluntarily agreed to return home empty handed as their hopes were dashed by the hard reality they were confronted with.

And as they try adjust to life back in the Gambia, Mr Jawo said the government will provide support to enable them get back on their feet.

“Those who have decided to return voluntarily, the government will not leave them in the streets like that,” Mr Jawo told journalists on Wednesday during a press conference held at GRTS Building, Kanifing.

Referring to a recent pronouncement by Agriculture Minister Omar Amadou Jallow that the country will be rice self-sufficiency in two years, Mr Jawo added: “There is an urgent need to get them involved into something. If we can be able to empower these young people to go back to the land, that would be a good thing.”

He warned against leaving them in the streets where they can get frustrated.

“We don’t want that to happen. The Gambia Government to stop the “back way” syndrome,” he said.

4 Comments

  1. I thought funds have been available for the resettlement of the returning migrants. Where are those funds?

  2. This is exactly what President Jammeh had been telling the lakadaisical Gambian youth. ‘Go back to the land and work’.
    Isn’t the incompetent Barrow administration saying the same? The truth is, don’t hate a person to deny the truth. What other jobs can this government offer these returnees most of whom have not finished secondary school and are without recognizable technical professions? Apart from employing them on the land?
    But be very mindful of how to assist them. If raw cash is given, most of them will fail. If farming tools are given most of them will sell them and just squander the money.
    I suggest employing them in a sort of mini cooperative groups with an expert agric field worker who will monitor, advise and control their participation/physical input and financial gains.
    Remember most of these returnees left the Gambia on expenditures not less than D50,000. Any physical cash to them in that tune, less or more would be a means to jump the land project for unviable ventures.

  3. Janney boy,
    What resettlemnt money are you talking about? Even if the IOM gives that money, this corrupt government will never announce that. That’s another bit of money for extra family expenditure. They are THIEVES.
    Of course, the IOM gives money to any refugee/economic migrant who voluntarily wants to return, depending on an agreement with a government or an NGO. Money given for the returnees is then channelled to these institutions for disbursement to the beneficiary returnees.

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