By Lamin Njie
Six people were hospitalised as protesters clashed with police at Sting Corner on Sunday.
Thousands of Gambians on Sunday took to the streets to demand the resignation of President Adama Barrow but the protest turned violent before it could even start.
Riot police fired teargas and beat the protesters who had started gathering at Sting Corner for a walk to the Independence Stadium.
It all started when a man suspected of being a member of Barrow Youth Movement appeared at the protest with a motorbike. A small crowd surrounded him and as tempers flared, police fired teargas. The place was then thrown into turmoil.
In the heat of the moment, Abdou Darboe, a protester lost almost all his teeth after being allegedly hit on the jaw with a ‘big’ stone by police.
His friend Saibeh Manneh told The Fatu Network: “All hell broke loose at Bakau Sting Corner where Abdou was just at the edge of the crowd. They approached him to move from there. Abdou told them, ‘we are given a permit to gather and to move to our destination’. They said, ‘no we don’t care, you have to move’.”
Saibeh added: “So during that fracas, bunch of them banged on him, assaulted him. The other one picked a big stone and hit him at the jaw and then immediately they dispersed.”
Six people were hospitalised at Kanifing hospital where a small crowd gathered to find out what was happening. Among them was the ringleader of the protest, Abdou Njie.
He told The Fatu Network President Adama Barrow was ‘nothing’ as he reacted to the violence.
“Adama Barrow is nothing, it was people who made him something. So if he wants to abuse the power we gave him, what we did in removing Yahya is what we are going to do to him too,” Mr Njie said.
Later, two riot police vehicles pulled off in front of the hospital and arrested Mr Njie in the middle of a small crowd.
The Operation Three Years Jotna chairman declined the police’s offer for him to enter inside the vehicle. Instead, he climbed in the back of the pickup truck where he waved at the small crowd as the police vehicle sped up.
He was first taken to Kanifing Police Station and later moved to the police intervention unit. The police later took him to Banjul.
