The incident occurred on Saturday 28 August at Westfield, while a KMC truck waste collector driver was on his normal business.
“It was raining so I had to raise the glasses up which prevented me from noticing that they (the ECOMIG soldiers), vehicle was behind me from the mirror but immediately I saw them, I left the way in the presence of the traffic police at Westfield but all of a sudden, they just came down from their pickup and started beating me with the claim that I was late to leave the way for them,” said the victim, Ebrima Bah.
“I was going to work and upon my way coming, there was this convoy going ahead towards Brikama, while the KMC driver was also moving, then two ECOMIG soldiers jumped from their pick up, pulled the KMC driver completely from the vehicle and started beating him so merciless without control,” according Pa Omar Tunkara who witnessed the incident.
Another eye witness Sally Jeng described the act as "very abusive and unlawful.” What those two ECOMIG soldiers did to this KMC driver was very wicked because the driver did nothing wrong to be seriously beaten and wounded. Everyone present during the incident knows very well that the soldiers under no circumstances shouldn’t have touched the driver because they weren’t in a presidential convoy nor in an emergency trip,” she stressed.
As a result of the issue, there was too much tension, anger and talks as almost all the KMC truck drivers angrily and collectively parked their vehicles on the highway signalling a quick reaction by authorities over the assault of their colleague. However, thanks to the leadership and management of KMC, the matter didn’t turn into violence as they all came on the ground to calm the situation down to prevent the angry drivers and members of the public from having any negative reaction.
