Exactly thirteen years ago, sixteen young Gambian students’ lives was cut short by the crackle of machine-gun-fire. The morning began uneventfully as citizens went about their normal business. In down-town Serekunda, the hustle and bustle that gave notoriety to The Gambia’s largest metropolis lived …up to its image of confusion and disorder. Two miles to the east of Serekunda, where the Kairaba Avenue, the Birkama Highway and the Serekunda/Banjul road converge, and the spectacular display of human activity spoke loudly of hope, but also of subdued desperation, no one could predict the tragedy that was about to happen.
That morning of April 10th 2000, when Claesco Pierra woke up in her London Corner home, she was bubbly and full of life. She had just finished her breakfast of porridge and sugar laced-skimmed-milk, and she could not wait to get to school. She wanted desperately to meet her four best friends to in order to small-talk about whatever adolescent girls talk about. The time was just after 7.30 am. And everywhere one looked, in all directions, school children walked singly or in groups towards St. Theresa’s School. Close to Westfield clinic, as one of the littlest boy with a running nose ran to catch-up with his older siblings, his left hand tightly clutching his loose, grimy shorts, a ragged white Toyota van suddenly veered off the street to avoid hitting him.
Around 9am, the Kanifing/Serekunda/Talinding Kunda junction was teeming with young lives; boys and girls, walking gingerly towards school with a future full of promise ahead of them. And standing on the side of the street near Paul Maroun’s store where Kairaba Avenue and the Banjul/Serekunda highways are locked in an eternal embrace, Jonfolo Ceesay, Ngone Jobe, Elizabeth Jatta and Ndungu Jallow giggled and made sounds that mimicked one of their female teachers, as they waited anxiously for their friend to appear. Just when the four girl-friends turned to look at a group of boys their age on the other side of Kairaba Avenue close to St. Theresa’s Church, their friend Claesco Pierra sneaked up on them unnoticed. Surprise, she shouted and made a gesture as if wrapping her arms around the others. The five exchanged greetings and walked to the edge of Kairaba Avenue and stood on the side-walk, arms locked together, as they always did whenever they crossed a street. That morning there was not enough time for the five to spend together under the usual mango tree at the far end of the school yard. As soon as they entered the school yard, they parted company and went to their separate classrooms. But, before they entered the school yard, they had renewed their friendship vows and they promised once again to remain friends for the rest of their lives, and not allow other girls or boys to get between them.
At 8 am sharp, the school bell rang, and the school principal, William Kujabi emerged from his office, his menacing hulk crowned with a stern, but harmless face. And as if on cue, the remaining students who stood outside in the school yard bolted, scattered and ran helter-skelter in all directions, towards their classrooms. Mr. Kujabi surveyed the school grounds one more time to make sure that no student remained loitering on the school grounds or around the school perimeter. Meanwhile, in a secluded block of classrooms facing away from the rest of the school, the senior students were meeting to discuss the events of the day. Only a few minutes earlier, Claesco Pierra, one of the seniors, had been motioned to join other seniors at the meeting. There was a unanimous agreement among the seniors to participate in the students’ demonstration slated for later that morning. The students agreed that only the senior students will be allowed to participate in the planned morning demonstration along the Brikama/Banjul highway and two students were sent to seek permission for Principal Kujabi. The mildly warm day looked like every other school day. When the school bell rang at the 9 am hour, students from the three senior classes gathered in the school yard in front of the principal’s office.
At exactly 9.15 am, led by the school head-boy Bola Roberts, the students, young boys and girls, exited the school yard and poured into the Kairaba Avenue side-walk and headed south towards the Westfield junction. Already,the junction was filling up with students from other area schools, and there was excitement in the air. By 9.45 am, senior students from the area schools had gathered at the tri-street convergent point Kairaba Avenue, Serekunda Road and Brikama Highway, to create a carnival atmosphere, egged on by adults proud of their country’s young sons and daughters. But five miles to the north at the Army Camp in Bakau, unbeknown to the students, military personnel in riot gear were heading towards the Kanifing junction too, even as more reinforcements deployed from Yundum and Denton Bridge military barracks sped towards the direction of the peaceful students march. It did not take long before the area was saturated with armed military men in riot gear. And it looked as if they had come ready to do battle with the defenseless students, rather than control a group of unarmed students, whose peaceful march had assumed a fun, almost carnival atmosphere. But to the hundreds of students, the protest was no joke. Just two days earlier, one of their own, Ebrima Barry, a young student, was murdered in detention at the Brikama Police Station by the regime’s thugs.
The demonstration at the Kanifing junction was organized to protest that murder and to show solidarity with Brikama students, where young Ebrima Barry attended school. As the students continued their peaceful march, the security forces were bracing for a fight, often threateningly showing off their AK 47 machine guns. And soon tensions were high on both sides of the divide, and there were exchanges of insults between the students and some security forces. Despite that, the least the students were expecting was what happened next. Unprovoked and in a deliberate show of brutal force, security personnel opened fire on the crowd of peaceful, unarmed student marchers. And when the machine guns’ fire finally fell silent, a crowd of students gathered over the bodies of the many lying dead on the highway. One of the many who lay dying was a beautiful female student in St. Theresa’s school uniform. She lay sprawled close to the old Cooperative Union complex where she had stumbled and fell. A bullet had entered the back of her head and exited from her fore-head above her right eye. She twittered once and fell silent. All efforts to revive her proved fruitless. Claesco Pierra was dead. The beautiful young girl with so much to live for was no more. Meanwhile back in St. Theresa’s School, Jonfolo Ceesay, Ngone Jobe, Elizabeth Jatta and Ndungu Jallow, her four best friends, had no idea what had just happened. For when it was over, sixteen lifeless bodies lay dead or bleeding profusely on the streets of Kanifing; shot by Yahya Jammeh’s security force on the orders of Yahya Jammeh’s and Isatou Njie-Saidy.
April 10th 2000 has become the most tragic day in the history of the Gambia. It was the day Gambia lost its innocence. And this year again, like previous years in the recent past, the students massacred thirteen years ago, are being honored and recognized as martyrs of freedom by Gambians at home and abroad. The mourning of their deaths and the celebration of their short lives will become an annual event, which will grow bigger as more and more Gambians become aware of the significance of the day. This year, Gambian organizations around the world are calling on Gambians everywhere to join us in commemorating the short lives they lived and the legacy of bravery they left behind by joining one of the many demonstrations around the globe. Like all the murders perpetrated on the orders of Yahya Jammeh and Isatou Njie-Saidy; from the assassination of Ousman Koro Ceesay, to the cruel murder of Deida Hydara, and the broad daylight execution at the Royal Albert Market of Sergeant Dumbuya, the recent strangulation of Sergeant Illo Jallow, to the executions of the nine Mile 2 Prisoners and every murder and execution in between, the perpetrators of the student massacre have still never been brought to face the arm of justice. But as we again today remember the murdered students, we will send a collective message to Yahya Jammeh; that the spirits of the murdered students will never die from our consciousness. May their souls Rest In Perfect Peace.
1. Reginald Carroll
2. Karamo Barrow
3. Lamin Bojang
4. Ousman Sabally
5. Sainey Nyabally
6. Ousman Sembene
7. Bakary Njie
8. Claesco Pierra
9. Momodou Lamin Njie
10. Ebrima Barry
11. Wuyea Foday Mansareh
12. Bamba Jobarteh
13. Momodou Lamin Chune
14. Abdoulie Sanyang
15. Babucarr Badjie
16. Omar Barrow (journalist & Red Cross volunteer