Welcome to mantawra

Welcome to mantawra

My name is Yaya Dampha an investigative journalist from the Gambia. Human rights work have been my area of interest. I worked for www.foroyaa.gm from 1996 to 2007. During which i dedicated my time on detention without trial, disappearance, torture in custody and extrajudicial executions which have become a common occurences since Yahya Jammeh took over power in 1994 military coup.

My writings and publications on the pages of foroyaa newspaper attracted the attention of amnesty international in 2006. I was contacted my Ais then West Africa researcher Tania Bernath about some of my findings as an investigator. I serves as  the local contact person for amnesty International in The Gambia. I work with amnesty International  team until 2007 October when the researcher Tania Bernath and the campaigner Basir Ayodele Ameen came on a fact finding mission in the Gambia concerning the secret detention centers and to prove that some of the missing persons are in government,s custody. On the 6 of October i took the team to Saregai Police station in the Upper River Region. Saregai is remote village close to the borders of Senegal and about 245 kilometers from the capital Banjul. This was where the former Untited Democratic Party Councillor Ousman Rambo Jatta was held for close to 2 years, We spotted Rambo in Saregai and interviewed him. We left Saregai for Fatoto enroute Basse. I was taking the team to Fatoto where i saw the missing Gambian journalist Ebrima Manneh(Chief) while buying food stuff in Basse market we were arrested by the members of the National Intelligent Agency and charged for spying on the Gambia government. The charges were later dropped after days in police cells in Basse and Banjul.

The government of the have plans to re-arrest me after the return of by partners to the United Kingdom. This was what sent me in to hidings for days, forced in to exile in Senegal for six months....  While in dakar Senegal i did research  work for Human Rights Watch working hand in glove with Corinne Durfka Africa program director of HRW. We interviewed and documented all the Gambian refuges in Dakar and its surroundings. served as principal witness at the ECOWAS Community Court in Chief Ebrima Manneh vs Gambia government.I was  later relocated to Sweden as a refuge  in 2008. 

Welcome to my page.http://mantawra.blogspot.se/