Interior Minister Mai Ahmed Fatty has said his ministry oversees refugees in the country, and there are no less than 11,000 registered refugees from the Cassamance region living in The Gambia.
He
made this remark during a press conference in his office at Kerr Sering on
Friday.
Minister
Fatty added that these refugees are just right at the border, who escaped from
southern Senegal to seek refuge in The Gambia, because of the peace and
stability the country is enjoying and is known for in the sub-region.
“They
are here because of the instability in their country,” he said, as he referred
to Gambia: “We do not want Gambians to be running away from our country because
of instability, and other people are even complaining that they are not really
happy for the new democracy at all.
“We
even know some of them are roaming around, and we even know sometime where they
want to meet, but we will not tolerate such groups of people in the country
again.”
He
said there are places like Somalia, Iraq and Syria where people are abandoning
their farms, crops, animals, cattle and businesses, and shops closed and
looted, but in The Gambia nothing like that is happening because of its
peaceful nature, and “we will maintain that”.
He
said the Inspector General of Police is taking every precaution necessary to
make sure all Gambians stay in peace, whilst the immigration department
continues to intensify the control of the borders; so that “those criminals,
especially for those who are in possession of weapons” would be caught.
“We will not allow anyone to wreak havoc on
our society,” he added.
He
appealed to all those who are in possession of fire arms, cutlasses and other
offensive weapons that have been accumulated, for other purposes other than
maintaining peace, to please surrender them to the nearest police stations.
He
noted that this new government is grounded on law, rule of law and
constitutionality and the constitution would never be violated, and there is
also a constitutional mandate to maintaining the territorial integrity of the
country, and “that will be done without fail”.
Mai
Fatty further stated that Yahya Jammeh and his former government, for the past
22 years, had suffocated The Gambia, and there were people who were above the
law and unanswerable to anybody in the conventional security hierarchy.
He
said: “If you have any information about crimes that were committed or about to
be committed, and those of you who have loved ones disappeared and were
allegedly arrested or detained, during the previous administration, we already
have a panel at the police department; the panel will look into it and
investigate and get down to the bottom of the matter.”
