By Binta Jaiteh
Former Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates NfansuBojang, yesterday appeared before National Assembly Standing Committee on Public Petitions, ranging from a petition from stranded Gambians in the United Arab Emirates on the complaint they made seeking to be repatriated to the Gambia.
Detailing his answer, Mr. Bojang said they received a letter from groups of Gambians on the 10th of June 2020. Saying their complaint or request for support was preceded by efforts already initiated by the embassy, and the embassy wrote to the authorities on the 15th of April at the height of the pandemic when there was a lot of panic. He said naturally, the time sought support from the government of the UAE to help them to transport those Gambians that were caught up with the pandemic and wanted to return to the Gambia.
At that time, he continued, all flights were suspended commercially there were no flights and there was pandemonium. “More citizens all over the world that were trapped in the UAE at the time were desirous of returning.
“For the information of this august body, about 78% were foreigners when the pandemic broke out it were chaotic for the government of UAE and some States that have national airlines to make arrangements if their national carriers should allow coming and flying their citizens out of the UAE.
“The government wrote to embassies to offer their support through Foreign Affairs to those states that are willing to bring their national carriers in so that they can open a corridor air space that can allow those flights to come in. This is because their space was shut down at that time and the Gambia was not one of those countries with a functional national airline at the time.
“We thought in our initiative to approach the government we know they have national carriers in the form of Emirates Airlines Etihad to see if they can grant us assistance in the form of loaning us one aircraft to bring the citizens for free at the time emirates was flying to Dakar. They opened that window so that those who wish to come to Senegal can use that flight but it was not for free it was purely commercial and they charged us a return ticket. We approach them for Gambians to be allowed but the land borders were also closed which was a challenge,” he stated.
He continued in his narration that “Gambians benefited from that and we wrote to our Ministry to see how that can be logistically arranged so that Gambian can continue to use that service. But it was a bit expensive and looking at the status of the Gambians involved at the time this was a little bit exorbitant.”
He added that they looked (applied) for a grant to enable them repatriated at no cost and the embassy was told to submit names of the Gambians that are stranded in the UAE and wished to be returned.
He explained how they had meetings with existing Gambian associations and have 58 names out of which 42 had legal status and 18 were living with expired visas and work permits.
He said the correspondence was going back and forth initially they were looking if they can fill a flight and they will arrange a commercial just like what they did for Senegal for citizens to pay but looking at the condition of the people.
He as well explained how another group that was not known to them arose apart from the group they were working with at the beginning but said they too had the right to be represented and supported by the embassy, “this was the effort Wwe did even before they contacted us.”
However, “one of the signatories is Mansour Faye, he is among those submitted to the government of the UAE for the provision of an air ticket,” while adding that “this is how things unfolded. The embassy started the initiative even before this group of seven wrote a petition to this august body. We worked with the UAE government up to the time of the issuing of tickets to those nine people,” Bojang said.
