Let’s not mince words. This is not a comfortable conversation. It’s not wrapped in diplomatic niceties or bureaucratic jargon. This is a brutal, unflinching plea for sanity for humanity.
Let me ask you this When did Europe lose its soul? When did compassion give way to cold calculations, and human lives become nothing more than numbers in a migration database? Because that’s what this is. A shameful game of political ping pong, with The Gambia caught in the middle.
The EU’s Convenient Fiction
Europe is calling The Gambia a “safe country.” Safe for whom? For the desperate youth selling everything they own for a ticket to Europe? For the parents burying children lost in the desert, or at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea? For deportees who return with nothing but broken spirits and broken dreams?
Let’s call this what it is a convenient fiction. A bureaucratic excuse to wash Europe’s hands of responsibility. Because if The Gambia is “safe,” then Europe doesn’t have to care. It doesn’t have to open its doors. It doesn’t have to confront the brutal truth that it’s not poverty people are fleeing it’shopelessness.
Deportation Without Dignity
What happens to the Gambian youth who are sent back? They land in Banjul Airport like ghosts of themselves traumatized, stigmatized, and utterly alone. They’re met by immigration officials, processed like cattle, handed a sewing machine or a goat as if that will fix the gaping hole in their souls. Then what? No counseling. No reintegration. No hope.
Do you know what happens next? They turn to drugs, to crime, or God help them they try the “back way” again. A never ending cycle of despair, with The Gambia bleeding its future, one young life at a time.
A Mental Health Crisis
Let’s talk about mental health a subject Europe claims to champion. PTSD, depression, anxiety these are not abstract concepts. They’re the reality for thousands of Gambians deported from Europe. And what does The Gambia have to offer them? A mental health system that hasn’t been updated since 1845. One crumbling institution. No trained counselors. No infrastructure. No hope.
Europe knows this. It knows The Gambia can’t cope. Yet instead of helping, it imposes sanctions punishing an already struggling nation for refusing to accept a burden it cannot bear.
A Call for Responsibility
To the European Union, I say this Reintegration starts with you. You cannot simply dump your rejected migrants on The Gambia’s doorstep and call it a day. If you care about human dignity if you care about humanity then you must take part in pre-reintegration. Here’s what I mean
1. Mental Health Support in Detention Centers
Before deportation, provide counseling and trauma care. These young men and women need to heal before they can rebuild.
2. Training Gambian Counselors
Equip young Gambians with the skills to support their compatriots. Build a mental health infrastructure that lasts.
3. Family Reconnection Programs
Deportation doesn’t just affect individuals it tears families apart. Rebuild those bonds before the plane lands in Banjul.
4. A Shared Responsibility
Sanctions don’t solve problems. Investment does. Partnership does. Humanity does.
A Warning
And to The Gambia’s leaders, I say this Your youth are not expendable. They are not pawns in your political games. They are your future. If you fail them, the consequences will be catastrophic social unrest, economic collapse, a generation lost to despair.
To the parents, the elders, the community leaders stop romanticizing Europe as the Promised Land. Start holding your government accountable. Demand opportunities at home. Because no child should have to choose between drowning in the Mediterranean and drowning in poverty.
Hope Amid the Horror
This is not a hopeless cause. We can break this cycle of despair. Organizations like AMAC are already doing the work providing education, support, and real reintegration pathways. But we cannot do it alone. We need Europe to step up. We need The Gambia to wake up.
Let me leave you with this The Gambia is not “safe” until its youth feel safe, safe to dream, safe to build, safe to thrive. And Europe is not just until it takes responsibility for the lives it impacts.
The question is Will we act? Or will we continue to watch as dreams drown in the Mediterranean, as hope suffocates in Libyan prisons, as futures burn in the Sahara?