By Rtd Lt Colonel Samsudeen Sarr,
Listeners of Coffee Time radio were treated last Friday to what might best be described as a masterclass in diplomatic consolation therapy. The host, Peter Gomez, sat down with The Gambia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Seringe Modou Njie, to soothe a nation increasingly alarmed by the plight of Gambian migrants abroad, especially in Turkey, Libya, and, in a twist no one expected, the United States.
Flanked by a senior female official, the Minister confirmed what every taxi driver, WhatsApp group, and distressed parent already knows about Gambian migrants. They are having a hard time out there. Very hard indeed. They are chased, arrested, humiliated, detained, deported and generally handled as though they were an inconvenience rather than human beings. In Turkey, some detainees are reportedly asked to dig into their own pockets to pay for their deportation flights home, a cruel irony for people who left home because their pockets were already empty.
But perhaps the most painful complaint is not the brutality abroad but the silence at home. Gambian migrants in Turkey insist that reaching their own embassy is akin to trying to speak to a ghost. Phones ring. No one answers. Distress calls dissolve into voicemail limbo. This is not just an administrative hiccup but a moral blackout. Even when miracles are unavailable, a ringing phone answered by a human voice can still mean, ‘you exist’.
What makes this silence particularly baffling is Minister Njie’s own résumé. Before joining Barrow’s cabinet, he spent nine years as deputy ambassador and ambassador to Turkey, stretching back to the Jammeh era. By most migrant accounts, he was accessible, responsive, and sympathetic, proof that diplomacy does not always require disappearing acts. One would assume that such habits would have been carefully handed over to his successor, Ambassador Alkali Conteh, perhaps even engraved on a plaque that reads: ‘Always answer the phone’. If today’s complaints are accurate, that plaque has either been misplaced or ignored.
Throughout the interview, the Minister repeatedly assured listeners that the migrant crisis is a “global problem,” driven by irregular migration. This explanation was deployed generously, like holy water, over Turkey, Libya, and now the United States. Libya, in particular, was described as uniquely difficult because The Gambia has no diplomatic mission there. Fair enough. Libya today is a geopolitical jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces; there are only rival governments, roaming militias, criminal syndicates, and migrant hunters who recognise no flag, no law, and no conscience. Slave markets, extortion rings, and organ trafficking are not conspiracy theories but are grim documentation.
The Minister announced that efforts are underway to appoint a Gambian diplomatic representative to Libya. One almost admired the optimism. Sending a diplomat into a country with two governments, countless armed groups, and no rule of law is a bit like dispatching a traffic police into a hurricane. Well-meaning, yes. Effective? That remains a matter of faith.
To his credit, Minister Njie does one thing better than his predecessor, Dr Mamadou Tangara: he shows up. He faces the press. He answers questions. Unfortunately, presence without policy is like a microphone without sound, visible, but not very useful. This became glaringly obvious when the discussion turned to the United States. The Trump administration, in its latest immigration flex, has reportedly suspended key visa processing as of 21 January 2026 for nationals of 75 countries, including 25 African states. Visitor visas and family-based residency applications are frozen; students, tourists and workers, for now, are spared. The Gambia, Senegal, Nigeria, and Ghana are all on the list.
Asked why and what could be done, the Minister reached for the diplomatic greatest hit: visa overstays and negotiations. The same explanation served for Turkey, Libya and everywhere else. It translates to “we will talk, wait, hope, and trust that time will perform a miracle”. In diplomatic language, this is what “we have no solution” sounds like when spoken politely.
Yet solutions require honesty about causes. The migration crisis did not fall from the sky. Western military adventures in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, sold as democracy-building exercises, destroyed functioning states and livelihoods. Millions who once tolerated “autocratic” stability now flee chaos created in the name of freedom. Instead of rebuilding what they shattered, Western governments invested in fences, patrol boats, and outsourced cruelty.
Trump has merely turned the volume up. He clamps down on both irregular and regular migration while slashing development aid, including USAID, dismissing it all as wasteful generosity. Expecting him to reverse course is like expecting fire to apologise for being hot.
So what do we do now?
A caller during the show offered a provocative observation, hinting that Senegalese migrants in Turkey seem to fare better than Gambians. The Minister hesitated. But why should this be puzzling? The logical response would be immediate engagement with Senegal and ask them what they are doing right, and how we can learn from it. A confident, decolonised foreign policy would see cooperation, not insecurity.
Sadly, African states often behave as though learning from neighbors is forbidden, while advice from former colonial masters remains strangely respectable. We consult London and Paris before Dakar or Accra, old habits that refuse to die.
Beyond bilateral fixes, this crisis cries out for continental action. With 25 African countries hit by the US visa embargo, this is not a matter for polite solo diplomacy. The African Union and Ecowas must coordinate a collective response, including reciprocal measures. Whether they possess the courage to act without seeking Western approval is another question entirely.
In the end, the abuse of African migrants is not a marginal issue. It is an assault on African dignity itself. Comforting words, global explanations, and endless negotiations will not restore that dignity. Only coordinated, assertive, and unapologetically African solutions will.
And perhaps, as a modest starting point, someone could answer the phone.
