Despite attempts by the government to convince Gambians that the irregular migration (the ‘back-way’) syndrome has been on the decline, it is quite evident that it has instead recently become even more regular and deadly, with so many young lives perishing virtually on a weekly basis while travelling in rickety dug-out canoes across the sea or trekking across the Sahara Desert in order to reach Europe. While President Adama Barrow’s message on the latest tragedy was appreciated, many people however saw it as being too little and too late as a lot of our young people have already died and continue to die in the high seas.
With such a horrible calamity leading to the frequent deaths and untold suffering of our young people, any other country would have declared the syndrome as a national emergency and devised ways and means to curb the situation. However, it is quite sad that the matter is hardly ever discussed in government circles as if it is not important. It was even a disappointment to many people that such a national catastrophe was completely absent in President Barrow’s New Year message.
Obviously, at the rate that our young people are dying on the “back-way”, and the immense suffering that some of them often go through on the journey, including while they are in North Africa, trying to cross over to Europe, the government should have given it priority rather than continuing to treat it as just another youth phenomenon. Hardly a week goes by nowadays without a report of a boat tragedy involving Gambian migrants. While it is hard to imagine why anyone would risk their lives just to reach Europe in such a perilous manner, it is however the reality and the government should treat it as an emergency which demands an immediate solution.
There is no doubt that if the government had woken up to the challenge much earlier, they could have found a way to at least reduce the menace. It is however quite a well known fact that human traffickers are going round our communities, virtually openly recruiting potential passengers for their nefarious activities, and no doubt scooping millions of Dalasis in the process. We are told that their main targets are usually the parents, mostly the mothers, who are more gullible and apparently much easier to convince to encourage their children to undertake the journey with the hope that they would one day succeed and sponsor them for the pilgrimage to Mecca, hardly thinking about the consequences of what their children are getting into.
Therefore, the only effective way that the authorities can address the problem is to go after the traffickers and subject them to the severest punishment, otherwise, this menace will continue to wreak havoc in this country as it is already doing. However, while we sometimes hear about some suspected traffickers being apprehended, but we have hardly heard them being prosecuted and punished, at least to serve as a deterrent to others engaged in such inhuman trade. There is even a possibility that the traffickers may be getting accomplices among the security forces, which the authorities should thoroughly look into.
While virtually all our coastal settlements are potential departure points for these perilous trips, but it appears that Jinack Island in Niumi has become more notorious. This is apparently because, due to the superstitious belief in this country that any member of the security forces who sets foot in Jinack risks either dying or suffering from a tragic misfortune, hardly anyone of them would muster the courage to go there. Is it therefore possible that the traffickers are taking advantage of such unfounded rumours and launching most of their departures from Jinack, almost quite certain that the police and the other security forces would be scared of going after them there? It is quite hard to understand in this day and age that even the few members of the security forces who muster the courage to go to Jinack reportedly take off their uniforms before entering the village. One would wonder where these superstitious beliefs originated.
For quite a while now, Jinack had been associated with the cultivation and trafficking of marijuana and other illegal drugs, which appears to have now been overtaken by human trafficking, which seems more lucrative.
Obviously, our security forces would be failing in their duties if they would allow such mere superstitious rumours to prevent them from carrying out their duties. It is even quite likely that those involved in such criminal undertakings like drug trafficking and other illegal activities may have been the ones peddling such rumours in order to have a freehand to operate, being aware that a majority of our security forces believe in such superstition.
