Security officials equipped on border surveillance

The training, which took place at the Gambia Immigration Department (GID) training school at Tanji, centred on border surveillance, territory control, and cross border crime investigation.  

The beneficiaries of the training included 7 officials from GID, 6 from the navy and 2 officials from each of the following institutions: Gambia Police Force, Gambia Revenue Authority, State Intelligence Service, and the Drug Law Enforcement Agency.

The aims of the three-week training were to safeguard fundamental human rights, control territory to prevent crimes, and grant citizens security.

Speaking at the closing ceremony on Thursday, Foday Gassama, Commissioner of Migration GID, said capacity building and enhancement of skills are the corner stones and prerequisites not only as outlined by the GID Strategic Plan 2019 but also a  key component in the security reform agenda of the Government.

 On that basis, he said, the Gambia Immigration Department and the other security service agencies prioritise capacity building of staff for effective and efficient service delivery endeavours.

In his remarks, Eduardo Leon, Director of training, Guardia Civil, said the main objective of the collaboration was to increase technical training and capacity building of the Gambia security officers in a very effective form and to cope with organized crimes including irregular migration.

 “The course did not only teach the security trainees in combating organised crimes and irregular migration but it also taught fundamental human rights and territorial control to prevent crime and grant citizens security,” he said.

Mr Leon further congratulated the trainees and hailed them for the determination they showed throughout the training.

“Since The Gambia government and Spain have had a memorandum of collaboration on technical assistance in 2008, the results from the collaboration has always been satisfactory,” he noted.

For his part, Seedy M. Touray, Director General of GID, highlighted the responsibilities and mandates of the immigration department and challenges posed to the immigration authorities such as irregular migration, trafficking in persons, movement of terrorist elements and other undesirable persons across the border undetected.

He pointed out that in order to effectively and efficiently address those challenges and to mitigate their ensuing threats, it is good to strengthen the capacity of border officials not only in terms of human resource but also to acquire knowledge on border surveillance and territory control.

The Gambia, he said, is committed to proper border control, adding that his department's aim is to facilitate an effective service delivery and ensure the legitimate movement of people across the national border in the wake of globalisation.

He commended Guardia Civil for having being supportive of The Gambia in providing such training, and advised the participants to make the best use of the knowledge gained from the training.

Violeta Insa Sandoval, Charge d’Affaires of the Spanish Embassy in The Gambia, said with the close collaboration between the Gambia and Spain, the challenges of border control, particularly irregular migration, would be tackled.

She added that Spain would continue to safeguard migration by working hand in hand with the Gambian authorities to protect people from the sea, which she said could be only achieved by collaboration and training.