The Gambia Makes Strides on Past Killings as Families Wait for Justice and Answers

Morris Tidball-Binz, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, praised the progress made and called for continued international support.

The Gambia has taken important steps to confront unlawful killings and prevent further abuses, but families still need those commitments to deliver justice, answers and reparations, a UN expert said after an official visit to the country.

Morris Tidball-Binz, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, praised the progress made and called for continued international support. He said the urgent task is to turn reforms and investigations into lasting protection of the right to life, meeting the expectations of Gambians who have fought to establish the truth.

The truth commission's findings must lead to justice

Tidball-Binz paid tribute to the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, known as the TRRC, and to the victims and families whose determination made its work possible. The commission exposed gross human rights violations committed between July 1994 and January 2017, including unlawful executions amounting to crimes against humanity. Some cases had also been documented during a 2014 visit by the UN mandate he now holds.

For families seeking accountability, establishing what happened is part of a process that must also bring justice, reparations and safeguards against further violations.

The Government accepted 263 of the commission's 265 recommendations, covering security sector reform, prosecutions in ordinary courts and a wider transitional justice process. A Special Prosecutor was appointed in April 2026, investigations are underway, and the country has taken concrete steps with the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, towards establishing a Special Tribunal for The Gambia.

Tidball-Binz said delivering justice and preventing further abuses would honour the commission's work and secure its legacy.

Investigators need the resources to identify the dead

The investigations require expertise and facilities that Gambian institutions need support to develop, particularly for recovering human remains, identifying victims and establishing how people died.

"Complex investigations underway by the Special Prosecutor require trained forensic experts, laboratories, equipment and reliable systems for recovering and identifying remains," Tidball-Binz said.

A forensic doctor with experience in human rights investigations and humanitarian work, he called for sustained assistance in forensic archaeology, anthropology, pathology, genetics and related fields.

That investment would support the Special Prosecutor's work and other agencies investigating suspicious and unnatural deaths. With lasting support, The Gambia could also become a regional source of forensic assistance and training.

Tidball-Binz welcomed the Government's cooperation during his visit, including unrestricted access to detention facilities and locations relevant to investigations. He offered continued technical advice and assistance through his mandate.

Death sentences, police killings and migrant deaths need action

The Criminal Offences Act 2025 removed the death penalty from criminal law, a development the expert welcomed. Its continued presence in the Constitution leaves abolition unfinished, and courts have imposed death sentences for earlier offences, most recently in June 2026.

He urged constitutional reform and the resolution of outstanding death sentences to complete abolition in line with the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which The Gambia ratified in 2018.

Security sector reforms include a police Code of Conduct on the use of force adopted in 2020. Deaths involving excessive force since 2017, including the killing of three protesters at Faraba Banta in 2018, underline the need for accountability.

Tidball-Binz called for prompt, independent investigations under the Minnesota Protocol, the international framework for investigating potentially unlawful deaths.

Hundreds of migrant deaths at sea and on land also demand attention. He recognised the National Task Force on Missing Migrants' efforts to prevent deaths and disappearances and urged adoption of the Immigration Bill 2026 to support dignified identification of the dead and assistance for families of missing people.

International backing remains essential, he said, both for these efforts and for the country's wider work to ensure that its commitments produce justice and lasting protection.