A 56-year-old mother, Kumba Kora, withdrew all her three school-going children because she couldn’t afford their education.
Hailing from Tambasangsang in the Upper River Region, Kumba was only relying on gardening to sponsor her children in school.
But the garden was allegedly forcefully taken from her because she was an opposition and handed to her rival women supporters of the ruling party.
Out of her six children, three were enrolled, who attained grades 3, 4, and 5 respectively at the time of their withdrawal.
“I am the sole food provider for the family because my aging husband is not well. Losing the garden means I had to prioritize between feeding my children and their education,” Kumba said.
Tambasansang, a rural village is 12 km from the metropolitan town of Basse. It used to be the chieftaincy for the Tumana district.
Both the village head (Alkalo) and the Chief (Seyfo) were strong representatives of Yahya Jammeh and his party during his reign. Like the same way many other victims of political intolerance under dictatorship had suffered, Kumba faced extreme hardship together with her fellow opposition in the community.
Being a renowned opposition, she paid the price and the consequences are still lingering.
A year she couldn’t exactly recall, she remembered a major incident that broke out between the ruling party women supporters and the opposition women which led to the separation of the community garden. Each party’s supporters were allocated certain measurements of land for gardening purposes.
But later on, according to her, conflict ensued as Jammeh’s supporters left their garden, claiming the land allocated to them was not fertile.
“We were powerless. We were intimidated and continually insulted. Their supporters came to our garden and set everything on fire. It was at a time when our vegetables were very green and bearing.
“The mangoes we planted had started bearing fruits as well. Everything was burnt and they took over our lands with the support of our former chief and Alkalo. We, therefore, succumbed to their fight and vacated,” she said.
Initially, the police had detained the arsonists, according to her, but such detention “very brief and they were released unconditionally.”
After the 2016 election which led to the downfall of Yahya Jammeh, Kumba’s hope rose high expecting to recover their garden. She hoped that the current administration will carry out investigations to arrive at the truth of the matter and enforces justice regarding their garden. However, no real change occurred as she accused the government of relying on the same people as supporters.
“We made efforts after the change but nothing is resolved because the new leadership maintains the same people as their supporters. The women who supported ex-president Jammeh were the same people rooting for Barrow’s government,” she disconsolately stated.
“We remain powerless to this day and continue to suffer because we still have not gotten back our land,” she added.
Like her husband, Kumba is aging. She says the frustration, regret, and pains of unjustly losing a deserved livelihood to her political opponents are causing her serious health issues, making her scared about the future of her children, especially with none of them currently being enrolled in school.
“I am not healthy anymore and I believe it is as a result of pains and regrets I am harboring in myself. It is not only me. Many others here have discontinued the education of their children because we can’t afford their education,” she said.
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) has published a report in 2019 which encapsulates the hardships women had encountered during the dictatorship, stating that the women victims had to go to great lengths to put food on the table for their families.
The report reveals that the struggle for the basics left little or no money for their children’s school fees, and some mothers could not afford to enroll their children in school. It is worth to say that the breakout of the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened their situation.
