By: Kemo Kanyi
A driver of the Gambia Transport Services Company’s bus has allegedly been physically assaulted by a group of Senegalese customs officers at the Karang border post on Sunday afternoon, December 15.
A source revealed to this medium as the incident unfolds that a GTSC bus driver, Jerreh Tamba, was manhandled by four Senegalese customs officers, resulting in the driver sustaining an injury on his neck.
‘’I am so surprised to see such happening to our citizens. We are currently stranded at the Karang border. Our driver had a little misunderstanding with the Senegalese securities. He passed the checkpoint where identification cards are presented for checking. He was instructed to go back, but when he attempted to do so due to the length of the bus, it was difficult for him to go back as instructed by one of the customs officers. Just a mere issue like this all passengers were asked to get off the bus and the bus was taken inside the depot and at that moment a group of customs officers attacked and assaulted him physically. Right now, he is locked inside and I understand he is currently in handcuffs. This, almost created tension here because the men in our bus also wanted to make advancement, which would have been chaos,’’ a source who is also a lecturer at the Gambia College Arts Department narrated.
The Voice newspaper reached out to the President of the Gambia Transport Union, Omar Ceesay, who told the reporter that, at the moment he had not received the information about the incident and promised to get back when he makes contact. He later confirmed that if indeed the story is true the Gambia Transport Union will take action to prevent future occurrences of such.
‘’I reached out to the GTSC officers and spoke to one of the passengers on board, both confirmed the story to be true. We are going to lodge a formal complaint to the Senegalese authorities to prevent any future occurrence of such unfortunate situation,’’ Omar Ceesay told The Voice newspaper in a telephone conversation.