By Mafugi Ceesay & Amadou Jadama
Residents of Sukuta have called on the government to return their land located at Salagi seized during the regime of former Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh.
They made this call yesterday at a press conference held at Salagi.
Lamin Jatta Kenebaring, one of the complainants, explained that natives of Sukuta have been deprived of land to a point that they are now renting in their own village, in compounds owned by people who came from elsewhere.
Another Sukutaman, Ousman Bojang advised government to at least consider giving them back the land that is not yet developed.
“We cannot afford to be foreigners in our own lands. The government cannot take our lands and give it to people from elsewhere; our children are old enough and cannot have a place to settle. We need peace and we cannot afford to be in continuous loggerheads with the government. They should stop thinking that all lands belong to the government. One of the reasons why we voted Jammeh out is because he was forcefully taking people’s property, killing, making people disappear. So we cannot have another leader like that. We want our lands back in peace,” Bojang said.
One Ousman Jarju explained that they were only given papers without a land.
“Our land was taken from us and allocated to government officials at the Ministry of Health, Physical Planning among others,” he said. He added that each time they have a problem with encroachers, they will return with a backdated leased document. ”We want justice now before it is too late,” he said.
