BANJUL, GAMBIA--Roadblocks, police raids, army surveillance and fear have become daily life in Gambia's capital since President Yahya Jammeh vowed to hunt down perpetrators of a coup foiled in his absence.
Since the presidential guard crushed a December 30 pre-dawn attack on State House in Banjul, dozens of people have been arrested and streets in the west African port city have been constantly patrolled by troops and police.
Checkpoints at main entry points greatly disrupt movement, particularly one on Denton Bridge, which links the island-based city on the mouth of the Gambia river with the mainland, residents said.
"Because of the time people spend at military checkpoints on the way to Banjul, many commercial vehicle drivers have boycotted this route," said a resident of Abuko, part of the greater Banjul area, on condition of anonymity.
"This has resulted in people struggling to board the few vehicles plying the distance" between the Banjul community of more than 31,000 residents and outlying suburbs, he explained.
Jammeh has led the small, narrow land of about two million people -- which lies the length of the Gambia river inside Senegal and opens on to the Atlantic -- since taking power in a coup in 1994 when he was just 29.
Once back from a trip to Dubai, Jammeh denied that any serving members of the armed forces had taken part in a coup bid, but he vowed to track down the assailants and "get rid of (them) one by one".
He accused foreign "dissidents based in the US, Germany and the UK" of taking part in "an attack by a terrorist group backed by some powers I would not name".
Several dozen civilians and military personnel have been detained in unidentified villas around Banjul, a source close to the National Intelligence Agency said on January 1.
The widely feared NIA has released no details of the identity of those held or the accusations against them. Its agents often operate in civilian clothes on behalf of a tough regime frequently accused of human rights abuses.
- Purge fears and high fares -
Banjul residents have reported that soldiers were carrying out door-to-door searches across the capital of the onetime British colony, raising fears that Jammeh plans a purge of his opponents.
"State security agents descended on our neighbourhood and conducted a house-to-house search of the area," a resident of Brusubi in the West Coast region told AFP this week.
"We don't know what they were looking for as they did not search all the compounds."
A fisherman said that while at sea one recent night, "we received a phone call from a family member who advised us not to go to the fish landing site at Old Jeshwang (nine kilometres, five miles from Banjul) as members of the armed forces and the paramilitary are laying in ambush in the creeks at Denton Bridge and Old Jeshwang."
The crew of the boat landed their catch elsewhere.
The constraints on transport force many people to walk up to 13 kilometres each way between their workplaces in Banjul and their homes in suburbs on the mainland, including the handicapped.
"I was sad when I saw someone in a wheelchair on the way from Banjul going towards Serrekunda being assisted," the commuter from Abuko in the suburban outskirts said.
The bustling market town of Serrekunda, where you can buy anything ranging from smoked catfish and groundnut paste to plastic utensils and local batik fabric, has grown into the country's biggest urban centre, home to 390,000 people 13 kilometres from Banjul.
AFP
