SUMMARY

Under the rule of President Jammeh, in office from 1994 to 2017, the Government of Gambia was implicated on several occasions in one-sided violence against civilians. During Jammeh’s presidency the government grew more authoritarian, and the political opposition was heavily suppressed, and the authorities have been accused of widespread human rights abuses.

The most notorious instances of one-sided violence in The Gambia occurred in July 2005 when a paramilitary unit called the Junglers, operating directly under President Jammeh and had received frequent training from e.g. Libya, Iran, and Taiwan, killed more than 50 West African migrants. Some of the migrants were executed on the outskirts of the capital Banjul, but the majority of them were killed further inland along the Gambian and Senegalese border. The bodies of the migrants showed that several of them had been handcuffed and then been badly beaten, cut and stabbed to death.

The Junglers went to great lengths to cover up the killings, among other things, the bodies were disposed of in a number of abandoned wells. Several high-ranking officials also took part in the cover-up of these killings, destroyed evidence and obstructed several international investigations into the killings.

The Government of Gambia first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 2007, when the one-sided violence resulted in at least 25 deaths. The threshold was reached in July that year when more than 50 migrants were killed by a paramilitary unit.