I was bitterly disappointed in UN, ECOWAS report, Gambia massacre survivor

Martin Kyere, 2005 Gambia massacre survivor 

The only known survivor of the July 2005 massacre of over 50 migrants in Gambia has told The Manual that he felt bitterly disappointed in the joint UN and ECOWAS report issued after the team had conducted their investigations.

A team made up of UN and regional investigators from ECOWAS exonerated then President of Gambia Yahya Jammeh from being responsible in the murder of scores of migrants from Ghana and Nigeria, which reports say they were mistaken for mercenaries.

According to Mr. Kyere it was by the Grace of God who released him from the victims of death so he could come and tell the whole world what Yahya Jammeh had done to them. Nine years after the report, he still feels bitter, not only for himself but for his entire colleagues who made the trip.

“I don’t know the facts and truth UN and ECOWAS used to arrive on the basis that Jammeh didn’t know anything about it. I was totally and bitterly disappointed in the report; not me alone but also the travelling members”, Mr. Kyere lamented.

He was hopeful when the investigative team from the two bodies met him in Accra to listen to his side of the story but did not hear from them again only for them to come out with that “unfortunate” report in 2009.

“I was invited to a meeting with the delegation in a hotel around the foreign affairs ministry. I was there from morning till evening. They just asked me what the story was about, I briefed them and didn’t hear from them again”, he stated. 

Ghana minister of information Dr. Mustapha Hamid has revealed that government was studying a request sent by Human Rights Watch and TRIAL International to extradite and prosecute Yahya Jammeh in Ghana.