Statements and speeches Special Procedures

End of Mission Statement of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions at the conclusion of his visit to The Gambia (5–16 October 2026)

16 October 2026

Non-official UN languages: (DOCX)

Delivered by

Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Morris Tidball-Binz

1. At the invitation of the Government of The Gambia, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Mr. Morris Tidball-Binz, conducted an official visit to the country from 5 to 16 October 2026.

2. The visit was conducted in a spirit of constructive dialogue and followed a victim-centred approach. The Special Rapporteur thanks the Government of The Gambia for its cooperation, particularly for granting him unrestricted access to places of detention and sites relevant to investigations. This openness marks a significantly positive and telling change from the mandate’s joint visit in November 2014, conducted with the Special Rapporteur on torture. The Special Rapporteur also thanks the Office of the Resident Coordinator and the United Nations Country Team for their support.

3. During the visit, the Special Rapporteur travelled to Banjul, the Greater Banjul Area, the West Coast Region, including Kanilai and Tintinba, and the North Bank Region, including Barra, Essau and Mbankam. He met with State authorities, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Gambians Abroad, the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Defence. He also met with the Solicitor General, senior officials of the Ministry of Justice and the Special Prosecutor. Meetings with security-sector representatives included the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Chief Inspectorate of the Police, the State Intelligence Services, the Gambia Prison Service, the Gambia Immigration Department and the Gambia Fire and Rescue Service, as well as the National Taskforce on Missing Migrants. He met with the Chief Justice and members of the National Assembly’s Standing Committees on Human Rights and Constitutional Matters and on Defence and Security, and of the Select Committee on Health, Refugees, Disaster and Humanitarian Relief. He also met with representatives of the National Human Rights Commission and the Reparations Commission. He visited Mile 2 Central Prison, the mortuary at the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital, as well as suspected burial sites at Yundum Barracks, in Tintinba and in the Kanilai area.

4. The Special Rapporteur also met with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, United Nations agencies and the Gambia Red Cross Society, as well as representatives of civil society and victims’ organisations, lawyers, academics and medico-legal specialists. He held meaningful exchanges with families of persons unlawfully killed or subjected to enforced disappearance under the former regime, and with families of migrants who died or went missing at sea.

5. The Special Rapporteur thanks the families who shared their experiences during the visit, many of whom had already testified before the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission. He recognizes that relatives of persons unlawfully killed or subjected to enforced disappearance are victims in their own right, entitled to truth, justice and reparation. Many continue to seek answers about the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones; their rights and experiences will remain central to his assessment and recommendations.

I. Background

6. From July 1994 to January 2017, The Gambia’s ruling was marked by gross and systematic human rights violations committed by State agents, including unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary detention and sexual and gender-based violence. The former National Intelligence Agency, the armed forces, the police and prison authorities were implicated, as was the “Junglers”, an unofficial paramilitary unit operating within the State security apparatus. The mandate’s 2014 visit documented impunity for unlawful killings, excessive use of force and a pervasive climate of fear.[1]

7. The democratic change of government in December 2016 opened a new chapter, and the transitional justice process that followed was designed together with those it was meant to serve. In 2017, the Ministry of Justice led nationwide public consultations that brought together victims and their families, civil society, women’s and youth organizations and Government institutions, with the support of international partners. These consultations shaped the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) Act, adopted in December 2017. They also informed the broader agenda of legal and institutional reform.

8. The TRRC became the heart of that transition and the remarkable result of The Gambian people’s call for truth, justice, reparation and non-recurrence of violations. Between January 2019 and May 2021, 393 witnesses, including 78 women, testified in public hearings broadcast live on television, radio and social media. Victims spoke publicly of what they had endured, perpetrators acknowledged crimes that had long been denied, and the nation listened. The Commission’s 17-volume final report, submitted in November 2021, provides an authoritative record of the violations committed under the former regime. The Special Rapporteur pays tribute to this exemplary exercise in truth-telling. It restored dignity to victims, generated a national commitment to “Never Again” and created the momentum for justice and reparation that continues to drive the transition.

II. Scope of the visit

9. The objective of the visit was to assess how The Gambia protects the right to life today, and how it addresses violations of the right to life committed in the past. He examined the legislative and institutional framework for the prevention, investigation and prosecution of unlawful killings, including the Special Accountability Mechanism and the implementation of the TRRC recommendations. He also examined the protection of the right to life in places of detention, the use of force by law enforcement and security personnel, the death penalty, gender-related killings of women and girls, and deaths and disappearances of migrants at sea.

III. Legal framework

National legal framework

10. Section 18 (1) of the 1997 Constitution protects the right to life, which is not among the rights that may be suspended during a public emergency. That protection is qualified, however, by section 18 (2), which permits a death sentence in narrowly defined circumstances, and by section 18 (4). The latter provides that a death resulting from force that is “reasonably justifiable” in specified circumstances does not contravene section 18, without prejudice to liability under other laws. To the extent that this provision treats a death as constitutionally permissible where force is used, for example, to protect property, prevent an escape or suppress a riot, its standard falls short of international law. In law enforcement operations, intentional lethal force may be used only when strictly unavoidable to protect life from an imminent threat. The mandate recommended amending section 18 (4) in 2014.

11. The Criminal Offences Act 2025 repeals the death penalty for offences including for murder and treason. The Act preserves, however, punishments prescribed by other enactments. Under the Constitution, any law prescribing a death sentence outside the circumstances permitted by section 18 (2) has effect as if life imprisonment were substituted.

12. Under section 6 (1) of the Coroners Act, all deaths in police or prison custody must be reported to a coroner, who is to hold an inquiry. A coroner’s inquiry does not replace a criminal investigation where the circumstances give rise to a suspicion of unlawful death. Ordinary criminal investigations are conducted by the Gambia Police Force, and prosecutions by the Ministry of Justice under the authority of the Attorney General. The 2024 legislation provides for a Special Accountability Mechanism to address violations within its statutory remit, comprising the Office of the Special Prosecutor, the Special Criminal Division of the High Court and the Special Tribunal for The Gambia.

International legal framework

13. The Gambia is party to all nine core international human rights treaties, including the ICCPR, the Convention against Torture and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. It also ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, on 28 September 2018. At the regional level, The Gambia is party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which protects the right to life in article 4, as interpreted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in its General Comment No. 3 (2015), and hosts the seat of the Commission in Banjul.[2] It is also party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

14. The Gambia’s dualist approach requires a treaty to be incorporated into domestic law before its provisions may be applied directly by national courts. In 2025, the Committee on Enforced Disappearances noted that the domestic framework for incorporating treaties remained unclear and called for the Convention to be incorporated, which is still pending[3] The absence of domestic incorporation does not, however, affect the State’s international obligations.

15. The Gambia is also bound by maritime obligations relevant to deaths and disappearances at sea, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue, the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air.

IV. Truth, justice and accountability

16. The TRRC laid the foundations for accountability in The Gambia. By establishing a detailed public record of the violations committed between July 1994 and January 2017 and setting out 265 recommendations on prosecutions, reparations, institutional reform and guarantees of non-recurrence, it gave victims public recognition and created the conditions for justice. Its findings provide an indispensable basis for criminal investigations, which must now establish individual criminal responsibility in fair proceedings, on admissible evidence and with full respect for the rights of the accused. Truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence should advance together and reinforce one another. The TRRC stands as a remarkable achievement in transitional justice.

17. To give effect to the recommendations accepted in its White Paper of May 2022, the Government adopted an Implementation Plan for 2023–2027. The plan is overseen by a Steering Committee chaired by the Ministry of Justice, which includes the relevant ministries, the judiciary, civil society and victims’ representatives, and is supported by the Ministry’s Post-TRRC Unit. The National Human Rights Commission independently monitors its progress.[4] On this basis, The Gambia adopted the Victims Reparations Act 2023 and the Special Prosecutor’s Office and Special Accountability Mechanism Acts 2024 and established a task force on enforced disappearance in May 2024. In December 2024, ECOWAS approved the establishment of the Special Tribunal for The Gambia, its first internationalized tribunal created in partnership with a member State. The Reparations Commission began compensation payments in January 2026, and a Special Prosecutor was appointed in April 2026. Implementation nevertheless remains inconsistent.[5]

Participation of victims and their families

18. Relatives of persons unlawfully killed or forcibly disappeared are victims in their own right, entitled to the truth, to participate in the processes that concern them, and to justice and reparation. The Special Rapporteur commends the mechanisms established to give effect to these rights beyond the TRRC. Victims are represented on the Steering Committee overseeing the implementation of the TRRC recommendations through the Alliance of Victim-Led Organisations (AVLO), including the African Network against Extrajudicial Killings and Enforced Disappearances (ANEKED), the Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations and the Solo Sandeng Foundation. Families’ representatives also take part in the work of the task force on enforced disappearance, and regular town halls keep families informed of progress and challenges and bring their concerns into decision-making. These mechanisms reflect good practice and keep victims at the centre of the transition.

19. Families of victims of unlawful killings and enforced disappearances nevertheless shared with the Special Rapporteur their pain and frustration at the slow pace of progress in ensuring justice and reparations.[6] The TRRC found that many of those who were disappeared had been killed, yet their remains have never been found. For their families, the violation continues until the fate and whereabouts of their relatives are clarified and their remains located, identified and returned. Also, without a framework regularizing the legal situation of disappeared persons that does not require a declaration of death, such as a certificate of absence, many relatives continue to face legal and administrative difficulties.[7]

20. Families of migrants who died or went missing at sea face a similar and painful uncertainty about the whereabouts of their missing loved ones, as most have never recovered their bodies and are unable to mourn their dead and carry out the necessary closure.[8]

Accountability

21. National courts have taken significant steps towards accountability. In July 2022, the High Court convicted five former officials of the National Intelligence Agency, including its former Director General, of the murder of Ebrima Solo Sandeng. In 2023, a former member of the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council was convicted of the murder of Ousman Koro Ceesay. These cases demonstrate that domestic accountability for the crimes of the past is achievable. All six were, however, sentenced to death. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the decision of the Supreme Court, in April 2025, to uphold the conviction of the former Council member while commuting his sentence to life imprisonment.

22. Families have also obtained redress before the ECOWAS Court of Justice. On 5 July 2023, the Court found that The Gambia had violated the right to life of Saul N’dow, who was forcibly disappeared and killed in 2013, as well as the right to an effective remedy, awarded a compensation and ordered the State to implement the TRRC recommendations. Although the Government publicly undertook to comply, the Special Rapporteur was informed that the judgment has yet to be implemented. On 5 October 2026, the Court adopted a consent judgment endorsing an amicable settlement between the Government and the family of Mahawa Cham, a former member of the National Assembly who was forcibly disappeared and killed on the same day as N’dow. Under the settlement, the Government undertook to investigate and prosecute those responsible within one year, to compensate the family, and to exhume and return Mr. Cham’s remains to them. The Court remains seized of the matter until the settlement is fully implemented. The full and timely implementation of both decisions will be an important measure of the State’s commitment to the rights of victims.

23. Most of the prosecutions recommended by the TRRC have, however, yet to begin, and most cases of enforced disappearance have not been investigated. The Office of the Special Prosecutor remains under-resourced and the Special Tribunal has yet to secure the funding needed to begin operations. The Special Rapporteur hails the appointment of the Special Prosecutor and his commitment to start investigating TRRC cases under his jurisdiction and calls on the international community to ensure sufficient and lasting support for ensuring the sustainability of this indispensable mechanism for truth, justice and reconciliation. He has already offered his mandate’s technical assistance and advice, including in his capacity as a forensic doctor.

24. Proceedings in Germany, Switzerland and the United States of America, under the universal jurisdiction, have complemented national efforts. These proceedings are welcome and complement, but cannot replace, the State’s own duty to investigate and prosecute.

V. Investigations of potentially unlawful deaths

25. Every potentially unlawful death must be investigated promptly, effectively, thoroughly, independently, impartially and transparently, in accordance with the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death (2016). Investigations must be capable of establishing the identity of the deceased, the cause, manner and circumstances of death, and any individual or institutional responsibility. Families should be kept informed, be able to submit evidence and be protected against reprisals.

26. Responsibility for investigating disappearances and unlawful deaths is shared among several bodies: the Gambia Police Force and its Panel on Missing Persons, which receives reports and is tasked with exhuming and identifying remains; the Ministry of Justice’s task force on enforced disappearance, which coordinates search efforts; coroners, for deaths in custody; and, for violations committed between July 1994 and January 2017, the Special Accountability Mechanism.

Medico-legal death investigations

27. Medico-legal capacity is central both to identifying the dead and to establishing whether a death was unlawful. During his visit to the country’s only mortuary, at the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital (EFSTH) in Banjul, the Special Rapporteur observed the great dedication and commitment of its staff and their interest in specialized training. There are no certified forensic doctors in The Gambia. Medico-legal casework is instead carried out by qualified pathologists who have acquired the skills required for it. They rightly called for further specialized training to build a team of qualified forensic pathologists, as the needs of the country require, including for transitional justice investigations. Nor are there any forensic archaeologists or anthropologists in The Gambia, although their expertise is required for the thorough and extensive search for, recovery and identification of human skeletal remains, including those of victims of extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances. Exhumations have instead been carried out and overseen by criminalistics experts from the police, who have benefited from advice and training by international experts but are not fully qualified specialists.

28. The lack of adequate and modern facilities, equipment and tools adds to the difficulties faced by those carrying out medico-legal and forensic casework. The hospital’s mortuary is very basic. Despite the efforts of its staff to maintain the installations to the highest possible standards of upkeep and cleanliness, it is grossly insufficient for the country’s needs. At the mortuary, the Special Rapporteur observed the skeletal remains of seven persons exhumed at Yundum Barracks in April 2019, believed to be those of soldiers summarily executed after the alleged counter-coup of November 1994. Notwithstanding the limited conditions and resources available, the remains are well stored and kept in a secure and dignified manner. They have not been identified precisely because the necessary expertise and resources, including DNA analysis, are lacking. Hence the urgency of stepping up support and assistance for medico-legal and forensic capacity-building in The Gambia, including specialized training for the highly dedicated staff responsible for these investigations.

29. The Special Rapporteur also visited clandestine burial sites at Yundum Barracks and in the Kanilai and Tintinba areas. These include the graves exhumed at Yundum Barracks in 2019, where more individuals are still believed to be buried. Their exhumation, analysis and identification await the necessary expertise and resources. Carrying out this work adequately will also require assistance, including from the mandate, and the support of the international community.

30. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the Forensic Investigation Enhancement Project, launched in September 2026 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Ministry of Justice with funding from the United States. The project includes support for much-needed capacity-building in the analysis and identification of human remains, including in cases examined by the TRRC, such as the remains stored at the mortuary.

VI. The death penalty

31. In April 1993, the then democratically elected Parliament overwhelmingly voted to abolish the death penalty, making The Gambia the seventh African country to do so. Reportedly, of the 87 persons sentenced to death between independence in 1965 and abolition, only one had been executed. Following the 1994 coup, the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council reinstated the death penalty by decree in August 1995. The Human Rights Committee expressed concern about that reversal in light of article 6 (6) of the ICCPR.[9] It later clarified that States parties that have abolished the death penalty may not reintroduce it.

32. In August 2012, nine prisoners on death row were arbitrarily killed and disappeared. The mandate’s 2014 report found, at the time, the executions arbitrary and unlawful, noting that they were carried out in secret and without prior notice to the prisoners, their families or their lawyers.[10] During his current visit, the Special Rapporteur was informed that the prisoners had been in fact forcibly removed from Mile 2 Central Prison by members of the “Junglers” and reportedly summarily executed outside the prison. Their bodies were never returned to their families, and their whereabouts and burial sites remain unknown, which in effect makes them victims of enforced disappearances.

33. Following the political transition, on 18 February 2018, the President announced a moratorium on executions as a first step towards abolition, and, in September 2018, The Gambia ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. In May 2019, the President commuted 22 death sentences to life imprisonment. The Special Rapporteur welcomes these measures. Under article 1 of the Protocol, The Gambia is bound not to execute anyone within its jurisdiction and to take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty. A moratorium is an important safeguard, but it does not fulfil the obligation to abolish the penalty in law.

34. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the Criminal Offences Act 2025, which repeals the Criminal Code and replaces the death penalty for murder and treason with life imprisonment. The Act does not, however, remove every statutory provision authorizing the death penalty, because section 2 (1) (e) leaves unaffected the laws governing the military and police forces. The Gambia Armed Forces Act, 1985, therefore still provides for death for certain offences. The Anti-Terrorism Act, 2002, as amended in 2008, likewise prescribes death for an act of terrorism. These provisions apply only within the limits of section 18 (2) of the Constitution. A death sentence may be imposed only for an offence involving violence, or the administration of a toxic substance, resulting in death. In any other case, the law takes effect as if life imprisonment were substituted. The death penalty has therefore narrowed considerably in law, but it has not been eliminated in compliance with article 1 (2) of the Second Optional Protocol requiring to take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction.

35. Based on interviews at Mile 2 Central Prison and information provided by the prison administration, the Special Rapporteur was informed that approximately 50 persons, including two women, remained under sentence of death at the prison. He was also informed that the Gambia Prison Service had replaced their black uniforms with the blue uniforms worn by the general prison population, reportedly as a signal that the prisoners would not be executed under the moratorium. The Special Rapporteur welcomes this measure of humanitarian consideration towards those on death row.

36. Persons held under sentence of death during a moratorium may experience acute psychological suffering as a result of prolonged uncertainty. This was confirmed from interviews held during the visit. This suffering extends well beyond the prisoners themselves. Some of those interviewed by the Special Rapporteur had not told their families that they had been sentenced to death, telling them instead that they were serving life imprisonment, out of fear of the impact the news would have on their relatives’ health. The Special Rapporteur urges the authorities to ensure, without delay and through an appropriate legal procedure, that every outstanding death sentence is formally commuted or replaced by an individualized, proportionate non-capital sentence, consistent with the principle of the retroactive application of the lighter penalty reflected in article 15 (1) of the ICCPR.

37. Furthermore, section 18 (3) of the 1997 Constitution required the National Assembly to review the desirability of total abolition of the death penalty within ten years of the Constitution’s entry into force.[11] That review has yet to take place. Recent efforts to adopt a new constitution also failed following the National Assembly’s rejection of the draft constitutional texts in September 2020 and July 2025. The Special Rapporteur encourages the Government to pursue constitutional abolition, whether through an amendment to section 18 or in any future constitutional text. In the meantime, he further recommends that the obligations under the Second Optional Protocol be fully given effect in domestic law.

VII. Law enforcement and the use of force

38. Since 2017, The Gambia has undertaken far-reaching security sector reform.[12] In February 2017, the National Intelligence Agency was renamed the State Intelligence Services and stripped of its powers of arrest and detention; that change still rests on an executive directive, pending a bill validated in July 2026. In December 2020, the Gambia Police Force adopted a Code of Conduct subjecting the use of force to the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality and accountability, and it has established a Human Rights and Professional Standards Unit.[13] Detainees held at Mile 2 Central Prison since before 2016 described a marked improvement in their treatment, although the NHRC found severe overcrowding and prolonged pretrial detention in 2025. The Special Rapporteur was informed that the armed forces no longer perform law enforcement functions. Soldiers who staff checkpoints or take part in security operations are nevertheless bound by the same standards as law enforcement officials.[14]

39. These advances have not prevented deaths resulting from the use of force. In June 2017, a man died when ECOMIG soldiers opened fire on protesters in Kanilai. In June 2018, three people were killed when the Police Intervention Unit fired live ammunition at residents of Faraba Banta protesting sand mining. In July 2019, a university student, was stabbed to death by a police officer during an attempted search in Kololi, and another man died days after his release from police custody, his family alleging ill-treatment, which the police deny. In September 2025, a man died during a police pursuit in Mandinary; a coroner’s inquest attributed his death to “acute brain injury resulting from physical exertion, stress and assault occasioned by the police officers”.

40. The authorities responded publicly to each of these deaths, and several led to inquiries, suspensions or charges; none, however, is publicly known to have resulted in a conviction or disciplinary sanction. In the Faraba Banta case, a Presidential Commission of Inquiry found that police officers had “indiscriminately opened fire at the gathered crowd at close range”. Murder charges were withdrawn in January 2019 at the request of community elders, and the outcome of the manslaughter prosecution subsequently announced has not been made public.[15] No verdict has been reported yet in the university student case; nor the findings on the deaths of two others; and a prosecutorial decision on the death during police pursuit remains pending. The Special Rapporteur welcomes measures taken so far but urges their completion.

VIII. Gender-related killings of women and girls

41. Gender-related killings of women and girls remain largely invisible. Women are killed by intimate partners and relatives, in violence rooted in discrimination, stereotypes and unequal power relations. In February 2025, the police described several killings committed in a single week as “acts of domestic violence, occurring within private residences, behind closed doors”. Yet available data do not record killings by motive or by the relationship between victim and perpetrator, so the scale of femicide cannot be assessed.[16] Nearly two thirds of women who experience violence never seek help,[17] and the Special Rapporteur was informed that women who report are at times encouraged to settle matters within the family, exposing them to escalating violence that may end in death.[18] Female genital mutilation, prohibited since 2015 and now challenged before the Supreme Court, was linked to the deaths of two infant girls in 2025; in the first case, the High Court acquitted the accused in May 2026, citing serious investigative lapses.[19]

42. The State must act with due diligence to protect women at risk and to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish killings of women by private actors. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the specialized police and prosecution units, the One Stop Centres and the 2025 standard operating procedures on sexual and gender-based violence, and the approval, in June 2026, of the ratification of the African Union Convention on Ending Violence against Women and Girls, which defines femicide. He calls on the Government to include the definition of femicide in national legislation and that all deaths of women and girls are systematically investigated from a gender perspective that would reveal prior violence, failures of protection and gender-related motives, and inform prevention.

IX. Deaths and disappearances of migrants

43. The Gambia bears a heavy and growing burden as a country of origin, departure and transit on the Western African Atlantic route. As departure points have shifted south towards Gambian shores, journeys have become longer and deadlier: deaths and disappearances on the route barely declined between 2024 and 2025 (from 1,215 to 1,172), while arrivals in the Canary Islands fell by 62 per cent. IOM has recorded at least 408 Gambians missing since 2014, while independent sources recorded 1,603 Gambian deaths in 2024 and 893 in 2025, most of them at sea, and 72 boats that vanished without trace. Migrants from across the subregion also depart from Gambian shores. The authorities must therefore rescue and identify people of many nationalities and support families at home and abroad, often for deaths beyond national jurisdiction.

44. The shipwreck off Jinack on the night of 31 December 2025 brought the tragedy home. Of more than 200 people on board, 112 were rescued and at least 39 bodies were recovered in Gambian and Senegalese waters; dozens remain missing. The National Disaster Management Agency activated emergency procedures, the President announced an investigation, and suspected organizers were arrested in The Gambia and Senegal.

45. The Gambia established a National Task Force on Missing Migrants in 2025.[20] The Immigration Bill 2026, now before the National Assembly, would for the first time criminalize migrant smuggling and aggravated smuggling where life is endangered or death results, and require assistance to those whose lives are in danger at sea.[21] These measures give effect to the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol. The Bill does not, however, address the search for, recovery, identification and return of the remains of migrants who die, or the legal situation of missing migrants and their families.

46. Deaths at sea may fall outside medico-legal procedures where no crime is suspected, case registration and cross-border information-sharing are limited, and there is no consolidated national dataset, leaving families without answers or legal status. Deaths that may be unlawful, including those caused by smuggling or a failure to render assistance, must be investigated, and the dead must be identified, recorded and returned to their families.[22] The Special Rapporteur strongly supports efforts to allocate land for a dedicated site where unidentified migrants can be buried in individual, marked and protected graves, preserving the possibility of future exhumation, identification and return to their families. Countries of origin, transit and destination share responsibility for preventing these deaths, and only transnational mechanisms for search, identification and the return of remains can match the scale of the tragedy.[23]

X. Conclusions and recommendations

47. The Gambia has travelled a remarkable distance since 2017. Through the TRRC, it confronted its past with courage and transparency, and it has built laws and institutions that make it a reference for transitional justice. The coming period will determine whether the truth established by the TRRC becomes justice, whether the disappeared are returned to their families, whether the death penalty is abolished in law, and whether the protection of life today matches the commitment to “Never Again”. The Special Rapporteur offers the following preliminary recommendations to the Government and, where indicated, to the international community.

Accountability and the rights of victims

  • Provide the Office of the Special Prosecutor and the Special Tribunal with the resources to operate independently and impartially.
  • Ensure that the Office of the Special Prosecutor keeps an auditable inventory of the TRRC evidence and records it received, preserves original records and forensic material, and secures their chain of custody, with urgent support for the collection, recording and archiving of information.
  • Guarantee the safety of victims and witnesses in cases under investigation and protect them from harassment and any other form of reprisal.
  • Implement without delay the ECOWAS Court judgment of 5 July 2023 (N’dow) and, in full and on time, the consent judgment of 5 October 2026 (Cham).
  • Ensure that the Reparations Commission has the resources to deliver prompt, comprehensive and gender-sensitive reparation, and sustain the participation of victims and their families in all transitional justice processes.
  • Provide by law for declarations or certificates of absence that regularize the legal situation of disappeared and missing persons, including missing migrants, and of their relatives, without requiring a declaration of death.

Search for the disappeared and medico-legal capacity

  • Adopt a national search strategy and a register of disappeared persons, with clear coordination among the institutions concerned, and preserve and grant access to the archives of the security and intelligence services.
  • Adopt a national plan for the recovery and identification of human remains, covering the protection and mapping of burial sites, exhumation and chain-of-custody protocols, the urgent collection of ante-mortem data and reference DNA samples from relatives, a genetic database operating with informed consent, and the dignified return of remains, beginning with those exhumed at Yundum Barracks.
  • Urgently provide specialized forensic training, equipment and tools, with a view to sustainable capacity, to all those involved in medico-legal and forensic casework, including the investigators of the Office of the Special Prosecutor and, in particular, the staff of the mortuary of the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital in Banjul. Without further delay:
    1. upgrade the mortuary’s installations;
    2. provide the equipment needed for autopsies and body storage and for the health and safety of the mortuary staff;
    3. remunerate those staff in line with their difficult and hazardous work.
  • Establish an independent national medico-legal service and forensic laboratory, with qualified forensic pathologists, archaeologists, anthropologists and geneticists and with quality assurance, ensuring that international assistance builds lasting national capacity.
  • Investigate every potentially unlawful death, including deaths in custody, in accordance with the Minnesota Protocol; hold inquests systematically, refer their findings to the prosecution where warranted, and keep families informed.
  • Locate, identify and return the remains of the nine prisoners executed in 2012, and pursue accountability for their executions through the Office of the Special Prosecutor.

Legal framework and the death penalty

  • Amend section 18 (4) of the Constitution and sections 16 and 66 of the Criminal Offences Act 2025 to conform with international standards on the use of force; criminalize enforced disappearance as an autonomous offence; incorporate ratified treaties into domestic law; ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture; and make the declarations under articles 31 and 32 of the Convention on Enforced Disappearance.
  • Formally commute all outstanding death sentences, applying the lighter penalty where offences are no longer capital. Ensure that no new death sentences are imposed and that persons under sentence of death have access to counsel, including for appeals. Repeal the capital provisions of the Gambia Armed Forces Act and the Anti-Terrorism Act, and abolish the death penalty in the Constitution, giving full effect to the Second Optional Protocol.

Use of force

  • Ensure that every death resulting from the use of force is investigated promptly and independently, that those responsible are prosecuted or sanctioned and that the outcomes are made public; and establish an independent police oversight mechanism.
  • Adopt the Police Bill and binding rules on the use of force and firearms consistent with the Basic Principles, supported by training on arrests and the policing of assemblies; and place the State Intelligence Services on a statutory footing, without powers of arrest and detention.

Gender-related killings of women and girls

  • Give effect to the African Union Convention on Ending Violence against Women and Girls, including by recognizing femicide in criminal law; establish specialized courts for sexual and gender-based violence; investigate deaths of women and girls from a gender perspective; publish data on such killings disaggregated by the relationship between victim and perpetrator; and uphold the prohibition of female genital mutilation.

Deaths and disappearances of migrants

  • Adopt the Immigration Bill, strengthened to:
    1. provide for the search for, recovery, identification and return of the remains of deceased migrants;
    2. provide for certificates of absence for missing migrants;
    3. punish aggravated smuggling, in particular where it results in death, commensurately with its gravity.
    4. Ensure the investigation and prosecution of smuggling networks and the protection of smuggled migrants.
  • Provide the Navy and the Fire and Rescue Service with the vessels, fuel, equipment and trained personnel needed for rescue at sea; conclude search and rescue arrangements with neighbouring States; and formally involve civil society organizations in distress alert systems, with the necessary training and protection.
  • Ensure that the bodies of migrants are recovered, documented, identified and returned to their families, including through the cross-border exchange of data, and allocate and protect a dedicated site with individual, marked graves for unidentified migrants.

International community

  • ECOWAS and international partners should support the Special Tribunal, the search for the disappeared, forensic capacity, reparation and rescue at sea. States along the migration route should establish transnational mechanisms to search for, identify and return remains. All States should cooperate with The Gambia in criminal matters, including through extradition, mutual legal assistance and universal jurisdiction. The Special Rapporteur stands ready to provide technical advice, including on medico-legal matters.
     

[1] A/HRC/29/37/Add.2.

[2] African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, General Comment No. 3 (2015).

[3] CED/C/GMB/CO/1, paras. 7–8.

[4] Government White Paper on the TRRC Report (2022),; Ministry of Justice, Implementation Plan 2023–2027, sect. 9.

[5] National Human Rights Commission, Supplementary Report on the Implementation of the TRRC Recommendations (June–December 2025).

[6] National Human Rights Commission, Victim and Victim-Led Organisation Perception Survey Report (January 2026).

[7] Under section 150 (1) of the Evidence Act, a person may be presumed dead only after seven years without contact, and a declaration of death is required for relatives to access social services. The Committee on Enforced Disappearances has recommended that the law provide for declarations of absence. CED/C/GMB/CO/1, paras. 55–56.

[8] A/HRC/56/56

[9] Death Penalty (Restoration) Decree, 1995; CCPR/CO/75/GMB, para. 8

[10] A/HRC/29/37/Add.2, paras. 25, 31 and 32.

[11] Constitution of the Republic of The Gambia (1997), sect. 18 (3).

[12] State House, 10 June 2019, https://archive.statehouse.gm/node/1154

[13] Gambia Police Force, Code of Conduct (2020), art. 3

[14] Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, art. 1, commentary (b); general comment No. 36, para. 13.

[15] State House, https://archive.statehouse.gm/node/933

[16] CEDAW/C/GMB/CO/6, para. 21.

[17] Demographic and Health Survey 2019–2020, as reported by Fact Check Gambia, https://factcheckgambia.org/2024/06/12/factsheet-gender-based-violence-in-the-gambia/

[18] CEDAW, general recommendation No. 35 (2017), para. 32 (b), https://docs.un.org/en/CEDAW/C/GC/35.

[19] NHRC press statement, 11 August 2025, https://www.gm-nhrc.org/download-file/a94e39be-76a7-11f0-98c6-02a8a26af761

[20] Rabat Process, https://www.rabat-process.org/en/activities/technical-meetings/thematic-meeting-on-missing-migrants

[21] Immigration Bill 2026, sects. 112–113, 129, 134 and 143, https://assembly.gm/documents/365/download

[22] A/72/335; A/HRC/56/56, para. 54.

[23] Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, objective 8.

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