Many people in Gambia flee as Senegal has allegedly launch an offensive against separatist rebels from Casamance.
Gambians on the run after Senegal lunches latest attack against rebels in Casamance. When we cast our minds back to the year 1982, we can see that that was the year rebels started to get engaged in a low-intensity conflict and this has killed thousands of lives.
Now the Gambian president Adama Barrow has made it clear to his people that he will do anything possible to help them.
“If you can come back you will not find us here because we are going to find another safety place, because here also is not safe. Here and Karrol, is the same place, only one village between. So you know that noise, that noise you can find you at Karrol, maybe he can find you here. So if you know that, it is going to be hard, like these days, we are going to run away again”, said Tuti Jammeh, a Gambian IDP from the village of Karrol.
As it stands now, the number of displaced is unclear and a local resident has made a claim that at least one hundred people have already entered his village. The health sector is also working hard as The Red Cross is already present in the field and is assessing the situation.
“We are doing an assessment to meet with the people, the IDPs, the refugees, that are within the hotline, within the mainlines, to register them. Also put them into the government data collection in order for government to be able to know the number of people. But now that the conflict is between the border lines, we expect more people, because this is the first time now that we are receiving villagers from Senegal to The Gambia”, said Sheriffo Mboge, regional officer of The Gambia Red Cross Society.
It can be confirmed with facts that the Senegalese President Macky Sall has made achieving “definitive peace” in Casamance a priority of his second term in office.
