By Mustapha Jallow
Mod-Talla Boye, the Alkalo of Jahanka village in the Central River Region (CRR), told Foroyaa that the armed group from neighbouring Senegal, threatened to carry out another attack on his village.
‘‘This conflict is not over yet because the group threatens to launch another attack on the village to kill us or we will kill them because they will not rest,’’ he said. ‘‘My son we not safe, neither are our children on our border territory. Our lives are in the hands of the Gambian Security Forces,’’ he said.
Boye described the armed men as a terror group trying to terrorize the entire village of Jahanka. He said they tried all means of dialogue with them to resolve the issue but that they are not willing to corporate. When asked how many men and carried out the attack and from which village, the Alkalo responded thus: ‘‘It was 6 villages in Cassamance who joined together and launched this attack. They could even attack us at night,’’ he said.
According to the Alkalo, border security heads and village elders held a meeting after the attack, to advise the youth to maintain clam and peace. ‘‘There’s tight security amounted in the village for our own security and without the intervention of Gambian troops stationed here, we could have finished each other. Their main aim was to set our houses on fire,’’ Alkalo Boye told this reporter.
He urged both authorities (Gambia/Senegal), to handle this border crisis maturely as the attacks are increasing daily; that apart from the officer who was shot, no one sustained any injury in his village.
Meanwhile, Haji Tabara, a Senegalese national who was part of the armed group that attack Jahanka village, has been released by the Bansang Police yesterday morning, Alkalo Boye told this reporter.
According to the Alkalo, Haji Tabara was arrested on Gambian soil by border security officers but has been set free and warned not engage in violence again.
At the going to press, the Fire and Rescue Services PRO Muhammad Drammeh, said their injured colleague is currently receiving treatment at the country’s main hospital in Banjul; that the officer sustained bullet wounds on both legs.
