By Omar Bah
Ya Mamie Ceesay, the 62-year-old mother of the late Alagie Mamut Ceesay, a citizen of the United States who was killed by the junglers allegedly under the command of Saul Badjie, has expressed how difficult it is for her to forgive the junglers.
Ceesay, whose son was confirmed dead two years ago after he went missing since 2013, said she has always been traumatized.
“I don’t think it will be easy to forgive the junglers who confessed before TRRC to killing my son. It would not be easy,” she told journalists recently.
Alhagie Ceesay and his friend Ebou Jobe, all citizens of America who disappeared while on a trip to The Gambia, were killed on the orders of former president Yahya Jammeh, masterminded by General Sulayman Badjie, according to one of the junglers involved in their killing.
“Forgiving these junglers is like constituting another dictatorship in the new Gambia. Of course, there will be reconciliation but also there cannot be reconciliation with those who took your son’s life away in a brutal manner,” she stressed.
She said there is no amount of compensation that can replace her son’s soul, adding that those who had committed serious crimes in a brutal manner should not be forgiven.
“You cannot compensate a victim like that…It is devastating and ugly if one tells me about compensation because no amount of money will replace my son. He was killed innocent.
It’s painful when I heard the narration of how he was killed and buried,” she said.
Madam Ceesay stressed that victims and their children are going through a lot of trauma as a result of the killing of their loved ones.
“Those who lost their husbands find it very hard to pay their children’s school fees while April 10/11 victims are in critical need of medical attention,” she remarked.
She pleaded with the Gambian authorities to consult the victims adequately whenever they are about to take decisions, such as releasing confessed killers.
