NewsLast Chance For Jammeh: ECOWAS Troops Halt Gambia Operation

Last Chance For Jammeh: ECOWAS Troops Halt Gambia Operation

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SAN FRANCISCO, January 19, (THEWILL) – ECOWAS troops halted their march into Gambia Thursday night to give former president Yahya Jammeh, one more last chance to leave Banjul.

Jammeh has up till noon to leave, in the new deadline given by ECOWAS, the West African regional bloc.

If he fails to do so, the troops under Operation Restore Democracy, will continue their march into the capital.

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There was no resistance by Gambian troops at the border when the West African soldiers entered Thursday.

“Troops in Farafenni refused to fight. They opened border for ECOWAS troops to enter freely. No loss of lives down that end,” a source monitoring the operation said.

“We think that up until the last minute there is still a solution through dialogue,” said Marcel de Souza, head of the ECOWAS commission, explaining the decision to suspend the advance to reporters in Dakar late on Thursday.

ECOWAS will send a team led by Guinea’s president, Alpha Conde, and including the presidents of Liberia and Mauritania to Banjul on Friday, de Souza said.

If the mission succeeds, Jammeh will travel to Guinea before choosing a country of exile.

“It’s out of the question that he stays in place.”

“We propose that he leaves in an honourable manner and with respect,” said de Souza, who added that regional leaders were open to the possibility of an amnesty as part of a deal.

De Souza said a total of 7,000 troops from Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Togo and Mali are involved in the operation. Troops had already entered Gambia from the southeast, southwest and north before they were ordered to stop.

The advance will resume at noon (1200 GMT) on Friday if Jammeh still refused to leave, he said. Barrow will return to Gambia once the operation is over but it was unclear what Jammeh’s next move would be. He has so far ignored pressure to step aside and offers of exile.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday backed ECOWAS’s efforts to ensure Barrow assumes power, and the United States said it supported the intervention.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement pledged “his full support for his (Barrow’s) determination, and ECOWAS’s historic decision, with the unanimous backing of the Security Council, to restore the rule of law in The Gambia so as to honour and respect the will of the Gambian people.”

ECOWAS and the African Union previously said they would recognise Barrow from Thursday, and nations including the United Kingdom and France were quick to congratulate him.

Gambia’s new President, Adama Barrow, who took the oath of office on Thursday at Gambia’s embassy in Dakar Senegal, called for international support from West Africa’s ECOWAS bloc, the African Union and the United Nations.

“This is a day no Gambian will ever forget,” Barrow said after taking the oath, which was administered by the president of Gambia’s bar association.

“Our national flag will now fly high among the most democratic nations of the world.”

During the brief inauguration speech, Barrow asserted his new role as commander and chief of Gambia’s armed services, ordering soldiers to stay calm and remain in their barracks. Those who did not would be considered rebels, he said.

The support he canvassed for quickly came in with the United Nations Security Council supporting a resolution backing West Africa’s effort to restore democracy in the small African country. Thereafter, the regional military force launched an intervention effort.

Following Barrow’s swearing in, hundreds of Gambians celebrated in the streets of Banjul, the capital, cautiously at first, and then gradually in larger numbers as they realised the security forces looking on were not going to open fire.

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