By Alieu Jallow
It has been 24 years since the blood of Gambian students stained the streets in a protest that began as a call for justice—and ended in a massacre.
On April 10 and 11, 2000, students across The Gambia marched in unity under the banner of the Gambia Student Union (GAMSU), demanding accountability for two grave injustices: the alleged torture and killing of 17-year-old Ebrima Barry by fire officers in Brikama, and the reported rape of a schoolgirl by a paramilitary officer. What began as a peaceful demonstration turned into a national tragedy when state security forces opened fire on unarmed students, killing at least 14 and injuring dozens more.
Among the survivors is Alieu Sanyang, now the Alkalo of Faraba Sutu, who was then an 11th-grade student at Muslim Senior Secondary School.
“On that fateful morning, I boarded a bus to Banjul with nothing but my biology assignment in hand. By the time I returned to Farato—bruised, limping, and emotionally shattered—the country I knew had changed forever,” he recalls.
Sanyang said he was unaware of the protest until their school bus reached Westfield, where chanting students forced them to disembark. “Tay la tay la,” they cried. “Today is the day.” As the protest swelled, the students marched from Westfield to Churchill’s Town and onward to Bundung Police Station, where chaos broke out. Buildings were set ablaze, detainees were released, and in the midst of the confusion, Sanyang was struck on the leg by a stone—ironically, thrown by a fellow protester.
“My attempt to stop others from destroying a vehicle ended with me injured,” he said.
But according to him, the worst came at Churchill’s Town junction, when soldiers from Yundum Barracks launched a brutal crackdown. Armed and unrelenting, they chased students through the streets.
“I ran for my life, eventually finding shelter at my late brother Yusupha Kujabi’s house in Tallinding,” Sanyang recounts. “When the BBC World Service confirmed five deaths at midday—including journalist Omar Barrow—the weight of what had happened began to settle on my shoulders.”
Back home in Farato, his grandfather, the late Pa Sillah, stood helplessly at Mindaw Junction, stopping every passerby and asking if they had seen his grandson. With no mobile phones or social media at the time, fear and uncertainty spread like wildfire.
“When I finally made it home, his first words weren’t of anger, but of relief: ‘Alhamdulillah, is that Alieu?’” he remembers.
Sanyang says the wounds of that day never truly healed. He cited victims like Mariama Cham, who lost her son, and others who continue to carry both visible and hidden scars as they wait for justice. Despite acknowledgments from successive governments, no one has been held fully accountable for the killings.
In 2019, the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) heard testimonies from survivors, witnesses, and former officers involved in the shootings. The Commission concluded that the students posed no credible threat and were met with excessive and unjustified force. It recommended the prosecution of those responsible, including top officials in the then-Jammeh regime.
Yet, 24 years later, those recommendations remain largely unimplemented. Victims’ families continue to wait—for meaningful compensation, for the prosecution of perpetrators, and for formal state recognition of their loss.
As The Gambia reflects on the legacy of April 10 and 11, the cries of those students still echo—a haunting reminder that the price of justice deferred is paid in blood.
“The lessons are clear,” Sanyang says. “A nation that silences its youth denies its future. A country without justice cannot build peace. And a democracy without memory is doomed to repeat its past.”
“May the souls of the fallen rest in eternal peace. And may The Gambia never again witness such a day,” he prays.
