By Seringe ST Touray
In the early hours of New Year’s Day, a migrant boat carrying more than 200 people capsised off the coast near Jinack Village in The Gambia’s North Bank egion.
Onboard were men, women, and children. Survivors told The Fatu Network that as the boat began to fail and panic spread, they did not wait silently for rescue. Instead, they made desperate calls to people on land, pleading for help, sharing information, and attempting to reach the authorities before the situation turned irreversible.
Those calls triggered a frantic scramble onshore. Two migrant activists, Adrian Corish, founder of the African Migration Advisory Centre (AMAC), and Ebrima
Drammeh, who runs the “Ebrima Migrants Situation” platform, began communicating in real time with people connected to the boat and attempting to reach emergency responders. Survivors also indicated that two passengers onboard, Abdoulie Njie and Yankuba Jaiteh, played a central role in the calls for help, encouraging others and relaying information as the crisis unfolded.
What followed has become the subject of sharp dispute. Government statements describe a swift response supported by adequate resources. Survivors, along with individuals who were attempting to reach the Navy in real time, recount long delays, difficulty reaching authorities, and limited rescue capacity when help finally arrived.
They describe a deadly interval after the initial rescue boats arrived and departed with only a small number of people, while around 200 remained in the water, during which many drowned. Survivors said no buoyancy aids, flotation devices, or life vests were left behind for those still struggling before further rescue returned.
The Government’s narrative and the claims it makes
In a Ministry of Defence press release dated January 1st 2026, the government said it was aware of a “tragic maritime incident” involving a boat “allegedly transporting over two hundred migrants,” reported to have capsised around midnight on December 31st 2025 near Jinack Village.
The statement said that “upon receiving the distress alert,” the naval patrol vessel GNS Jambarr was recalled from a routine fisheries patrol and redirected to the emergency. It added that the Gambia Navy “immediately launched a search, rescue, and recovery operation” and that “a naval rescue vessel was dispatched from the Fisheries Jetty in Banjul to the emergency operation at approximately 1am on 1st January 2026.”
According to the press release, the distressed vessel was found grounded on a sandbank. The operation was said to involve “three naval speedboats and a coastal patrol vessel,” alongside a local fishing canoe whose operators volunteered to assist.
At the time of the statement, the Ministry of Defence reported that 96 people had been rescued. It said 39 were admitted to Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital(EFSTH), 57 were receiving medical care at the naval base, 10 were in critical condition, and 7 bodies had been recovered, with others still unaccounted for.
The following day, President Adama Barrow addressed the nation, echoing the same central framing of rapid mobilisation and adequate resources. In his address, he said, “Meanwhile, a national emergency response plan has been activated and the government has deployed adequate resources to intensify efforts and provide immediate assistance to the survivors.”
He also praised the Navy, stating, “I express profound gratitude to the gallant personnel of the Gambian navy for their safe, courageous, and determined response.
On receiving the distress alert, they acted promptly by putting their lives at risk to save the lives of others.”
These claims of prompt action and adequate resources form the core of the official narrative. Survivors and individuals who were involved on land during the emergency describe timelines, capacity gaps, and conditions that they say do not align with those assertions.
Distress calls and the struggle to reach the Navy
Accounts from survivors indicate that the tragedy was not only about the boat’s failure, but about what followed after the vessel began experiencing serious problems around midnight, shortly after the New Year began.
As conditions deteriorated and the boat started taking in water, people onboard began calling for help.
By the early hours of the morning, Ebrima Drammeh posted publicly at around 02:45 a.m. that he had been communicating with people connected to a migrant boat that had departed from Nuimi Jinack at about 22:00, carrying “hundreds of people including women and children.” He wrote that the boat was in distress “around Jinack” at the time of his post.
In that post, Ebrima stated that those trying to help were “trying to communicate with the Gambia Navy but no reply,” and that people on the boat were “panicking.”
Survivors told The Fatu Network that the difficulty in reaching the authorities, and the time it took for an effective response to materialise, is central to why so many lives were lost.
Six survivors and a shared account
On Monday, January 12th 2026, six youth survivors came to The Fatu Network studio to give testimonies in person. They were Yankuba Jaiteh, Muhammed Kandeh, Nfamara Senghore, Abdoulie Njie, Kumba Keita, and Musa Fabure. Kumba Keita was the only woman among them.
They confirmed that Abdoulie Njie and Yankuba Jaiteh were among those making calls for help and encouraging others onboard as the situation deteriorated. They also shared a detail that challenges a narrative often repeated in public discourse, that families encourage their children to take the backway.
According to the survivors, none of the six informed their parents or guardians that they were embarking on the journey. In their accounts, the decision was concealed, not endorsed.
Baboucarr Ceesay, the onshore helper who chased help through the night one of the most detailed accounts comes from Baboucarr Ceesay, not as a passenger, but as one of the people contacted on land while the boat was in distress. He described what he did after receiving calls for help from those onboard, and what he encountered as he tried to reach the Navy through multiple channels. In his statement, Baboucarr said, “They died as a result of not receiving support on time.”
He recalled receiving updates at about 00:20 and speaking directly to someone on the boat at 00:23, when the water was already around their waist. He said he attempted to contact the Navy but was unable to get through.
Baboucarr then described moving from one institution to another in search of a response, first to the Busumbala Police Post, then to the Military Police at Yundum Barracks, followed by the Serrekunda Fire Service Station, before finally heading to Navy Headquarters in Banjul.
He recounted that he arrived at the Navy base at 01:29 and that between 01:35 and 01:45 speedboats were launched. Baboucarr said that as those speedboats were being prepared and deployed, he observed they were not carrying buoyancy aids, life vests, flotation devices, or any equipment that could be thrown into the water to keep people afloat. This was despite the Navy being informed that around 200 people were panicking at sea, many already in the water, and that rescue capacity, when it was eventually mobilised by the Navy, was limited to small speedboats.
Throughout that period, he said he remained on the phone with people on the boat, attempting to reassure them as they screamed that no help was coming, while he insisted assistance was on the way.
His account depicts a chaotic night in which distressed passengers were calling from the sea, people on land were scrambling to reach authorities, and rescue arrived hours after the first alerts, without flotation equipment that could have been immediately deployed to prevent people from sinking.
“The Rescue Came, Then Left,” and the Deadliest Window Survivors described a rescue operation that unfolded in stages, with early efforts that were limited relative to the scale of the emergency. From Abdoulie Njie’s account and other testimonies, the first rescue reached the scene around 3:00 a.m., hours after the earliest calls for help. Two small speedboats arrived as part of that initial rescue phase.
Muhammed Kandeh, one of the survivors interviewed by The Fatu Network, said he was on one of the speedboats and counted those who boarded, putting the number at about 15. The other speedboat, according to survivor accounts, carried about 10 people, after Navy personnel complained that the first boat was overloaded and reduced the number on the second one.
Survivors said that when those two speedboats departed, they did so without leaving behind any buoyancy aids, flotation devices, or life vests for the roughly 200 people still in the water or clinging to the failing boat. They consistently stated that most deaths occurred after those speedboats left with a small number of people and before rescue returned hours later, when it was already daylight.
Between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m., when it was bright outside, rescue reportedly resumed in a different pattern. Survivors said one small speedboat was kept at a distance to avoid a rush, while a fishing boat was used to collect desperate survivors and ferry them to the speedboat.
The “brand new” vessels and the fuel claim
After survivors were taken to Navy Headquarters in Banjul, Abdoulie Njie and others said they saw two much larger, “brand new” vessels docked at the base. They said this prompted questions among them as to why a higher-capacity vessel had not been used during the rescue operation.
According to their accounts, Navy personnel told them the vessels had been donated by the Americans. Survivors further said that two Navy officers on the ground told them the larger vessels could not be used during the rescue “because they did not have fuel,” and were therefore not operational at the time.
Abdoulie Njie, the last to be rescued
Abdoulie Njie’s account has become central to survivor testimonies, both because of his coordination role during the crisis and because survivors agreed he was the last person to be rescued from the migrant boat. He said he had a severe toothache even before boarding the migrant boat that departed from Nuimi Jinack at around 22:00, yet remained actively involved in calling for help and encouraging others as the situation worsened.
After surviving the night and being rescued last, he described the pain as excruciating.
He also said that since the incident, he breaks down crying daily, thinking about the lives lost, including close friends.
From rescue to detention
Survivors recounted that what happened after they were pulled from the water compounded their trauma. Those survivors who were not admitted to Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital were taken to Navy Headquarters in Banjul and later that same day transported to Tanji Immigration, where they were booked and held for five days.
After several days in detention, they said they were informed they could contact their families to come and bail them. They were told that if any survivor absconded after bail and failed to report back, the person who posted bail would have to pay 200,000 Gambian dalasis. They also said they remain out on bond and must report back regularly, with a reporting timeline that included release on Tuesday the 6th, reporting on Friday the 9th, reporting again on Monday the 12th, and instructions to return again on Monday the 19th.
Survivors described being “treated as criminals” rather than as victims of a mass casualty incident. They also said the Red Cross visited Tanji Immigration after their first night in detention to check whether anyone needed medical attention.
Medical treatment claims
Accounts from survivors also detail their treatment while in detention. Abdoulie Njie said immigration officers refused to allow him access to medical help for his toothache, to the point that he could not eat solid food for days and struggled to sleep.
According to him, when he insisted on medical attention, an officer dismissed the request, saying, “this toothache will not kill you.” He added that after pressing the issue, he was labelled “rude” and separated from the rest.
“They Want to Politicise the Backway”
As public criticism grew, Information Minister Dr Ismaila Ceesay publicly pushed back, saying, “they want to politicise the backway and blame the government.”
Survivor testimonies and the evidence presented in this report, however, focus on timelines, rescue capacity, preparedness, and the sequence of events described by those involved, rather than partisan positions.
What Remains unanswered as of January 18th 2026
As of January 18th, government statements describe prompt action, adequate resources, and a coordinated rescue operation. Survivor testimonies and accounts from individuals contacted on land during the emergency describe a different sequence of events. These include repeated attempts to reach the Navy without response, a first rescue around 3:00 a.m. with limited early capacity, and a prolonged interval after those initial rescues during which survivors say most deaths occurred, before further rescue returned by dawn.
The Ministry of Defence press release described a multi vessel operation, including three speedboats and a coastal patrol vessel. Survivors insist the earliest rescues involved two small speedboats carrying about 15 and 10 people, and that those boats departed without leaving flotation equipment behind, despite around 200 people still struggling in the water.
President Barrow said, “On receiving the distress alert, they acted promptly.”
Survivors and eyewitnesses, however, said distress alerts were being raised for hours before effective rescue arrived. They also said many people died during that period, with additional deaths occurring as a result of limited early rescue capacity and the absence of buoyancy aids during the critical early phase.
