The death of about 70 children in 2022 led to a national outcry
Adama Barrow was re-elected on the strength of his pitch as the candidate of continuity, but faces mounting pressure for action, both from home and abroad
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/ 12 November 2007
Twenty African migrants were feared dead after the boat in which they were trying to reach Spain capsized in bad weather off the coast of The Gambia at the weekend, Gambian state television said on Monday. Police were alerted by a survivor, Lamin Fatty, who said the boat had been carrying 50 passengers when it capsized.
Amnesty International said on Tuesday it was working with senior Gambian officials to secure the unconditional and immediate release of its two reseachers held without charge since the weekend. The researchers for the London-based human rights watchdog were freed on bail late on Monday after their arrest on Saturday.
The Gambia’s National Intelligence Agency detained a United States-based journalist as she arrived home on holiday in connection with stories criticising the government, relatives and security sources said on Friday.
Efforts by Africans to seek a better life in Europe were brought to the fore on Wednesday as African foreign ministers started meeting ahead of a summit of heads of states. The Gambian Vice-President Isatou Njie-Saidy and African Union Commission president Alpha Konare urged the ministers to come up with a common strategy on the ”vexing” issue of international migration.
The poorly equipped African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur is set to quit the troubled western Sudanese region by end of September due to a lack of funds, the AU’s security organ said on Tuesday. ”Whatever happens, our mandate ends on September 31 unless there are new developments,” South Africa’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said.
The Gambia’s media is outraged by the promulgation of two new press laws it says were signed in secret by President Yahya Jammeh to muzzle freedom of expression as the country gears up for elections next year. Jammeh has approved the two laws, which were passed by Parliament in December, despite a storm of protest at home and abroad.
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/ 14 February 2005
The inspector general of Gambia’s police force was on Sunday in jail along with the West African state’s former top immigration official, police sources said. Police chief Landing Badjie and Tamsir Jasseh were arrested on Saturday by National Intelligence Agency officers and taken to the capital’s central prison.
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/ 20 December 2004
Gambia’s lively independent media fell silent on Monday to open a weeklong news blackout to honour Deida Hydara, the dean of the press corps who was slain last week in what his colleagues believe was a politically motivated act. Hydara (58) was felled by three bullets in what colleagues said appeared to be a drive-by shooting.
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/ 20 October 2004
Gambia has decided to revoke a controversial 2002 media law requiring journalists and the privately owned press to register with a state-run commission, a local radio station reported on Wednesday. Local media and international organisations from the start condemned the media commission.