By Hatab Nyang and Louise Jobe
A land boundary demarcation exercise intended to resolve disputes between Gunjur, Berending and Kartong took a dramatic turn on September 3, 2025, when villagers of Berending chased away a government survey team and accompanying Police Intervention Unit (PIU) officers.
The team, sent by the Ministry of Lands and Surveys, had arrived in the area with 20 pegs to mark boundaries. But they managed to plant only five pegs from Medina Salam toward Berending before angry residents blocked their progress. At Soforai Lodge in Berending, villagers confronted the officials, ordering them to leave immediately.
Demonstrators, including both elders and youths, shouted slogans as they gathered: “Go out from our village,” “We will not allow a few families from Gunjur to take over our land,” “We will see to it that we all die but we will not allow land grabbers to grab our land,” and “We will not allow this land demarcation to continue.”
The confrontation forced the Lands and Surveys officials, along with PIU officers, to retreat as far as Medina Salam, where the pegs were collected and taken back to Brikama.
According to the Alkalo of Medina Salam, three pegs previously planted in his village had already been dismantled and destroyed. Why the officials decided to withdraw the remaining pegs to Brikama remained unclear by the end of the day.
The dispute underscores long-standing tensions between communities over land ownership in the West Coast Region, where claims of encroachment and land grabbing have fueled repeated clashes.
