By: Nyima Sillah
The Director General of the Gambia Immigration Department (GID), Seedy M. Touray, has revealed the GID made 29 interceptions with 20 smugglers/traffickers successfully prosecuted thanks to the department’s Operation Zero Departureinitiative.
The DG explained that the clandestine movement known as Backway has been a phenomenon that has been affecting the country, adding that the crop of youths that embarked on the perilous journey is “very” devastating.
“We try as much as possible to ensure that we minimize the movement of people on this journey. Towards the tail-end of last year, we organized an operation that we called Operation Zero Departure. This operation proved very successful in the sense that the whole of last year from January to December, we were able to have 29 interceptions out of which 20 were successfully prosecuted,” DG Touray explained.
He, however, pointed out that despite the successes,the department was challenged in some ways.
“Success goes with challenges and part of the thechallenges GID had, which we were not too amusedof, is that two of the boats escaped,” he admitted.
DG Touray thanked officers for the success of the zero-departure initiative.
“The officers that embarked on this zero-departure operation did extremely well. Their work was tremendous. We encourage them to maintain the momentum because in as much as we try to discourage this, the smugglers also have their own modus operandi, they have their own plans,” he stated.
The Immigration DG pointed out that the dynamicsof irregular migration keep changing but that theywere managing expectations.
