By: Nyima Sillah
The Commissioner of the Migration Management Unit of the Gambia Immigration Department (GID) Foday Gassama has described the surge in irregular migrationlate last year as a Tsunami.
“We have been fighting irregular migration activity that happened in this country but last year wasunprecedented. It is like a Tsunami and it’s not only for this country, it’s the entire sub-region. That is why all the effort we have been doing, people feel that there are a lot of things which we need to do and we entirelyagree,” Commissioner Gassama told the GID’s Identity magazine.
Commissioner Gassama reiterated that the spike in cases of irregular migration in 2023 has swept the entire sub-region or the entire African region like a Tsunami.
“It stretched our capacity to the limit because we used to have two patrol teams that are exclusively dedicated to the fight against irregular migration and one is in Tanji and the other one is based in Barra,” he stated.
He pointed out that the GID has, over the years, registered successes in terms of interceptions, addingthat a lot of boats were intercepted as they tried to leave the Gambian shores.
“Those successes were registered but this year, like I said, the entire irregular migration issue for the whole of Africa came like a Tsunami and it stretched the capacity of the department to the limit. The two patrol teams did their best last year. Fifty-five cases were brought to us and they were investigated. Twenty-nineoperations were conducted and through those 29 operations, 10 boats were seized and a total of 33 individuals were prosecuted on different counts, relating to the smuggling of migrants,” Commissioner Gassama explained.
According to him, 317 migrants were intercepted through their operations at various locations, mostly West Coast and North Bank regions, adding that one could tell from these interceptions that the numbers were huge.
“These are numbers we did not have over the years. That goes to show how serious irregular migration activity was in this country and the sub-region last year alone,” he pointed out.
He stated that irregular migration was gainingmomentum to the point that the GID had to redirect all its such as vehicles and human resources to fight irregular migration.
