By: Kebba Ansu Manneh
Fresh border incursions by Senegalese Gendarmerie have been reported across multiple communities in Niamina, Lower Fulladu, and Upper Fulladu in the Central River Region (CRR) south of The Gambia, according to eyewitnesses who spoke with The Alkamba Times (TAT). The incidents, which occurred on Friday, 24 July 2026, have left local farmers alarmed and defiant after armed personnel ordered them to abandon farmlands they insist have belonged to their families for generations.
This move follows a similar pattern across the country’s border communities. On Saturday, July 18, 2026, Senegalese Gendarmerie officers entered Gambian territory. They ordered farmers in Jimbala Kerr Musa, Lower Saloum District in the northern Central River Region, to vacate their farmland or face immediate arrest and prosecution.
The same day, officers appeared in the border settlement of Panchang in Upper Saloum District, asserting that the land belongs to Senegal. This followed an incident about a week earlier, when Senegalese military personnel crossed into disputed land at Bullock Military Camp in Foni Kansala. Under heavy security, they used a bulldozer to demolish approximately 200 meters of newly built perimeter fencing.
Eyewitnesses confirmed that groups of Senegalese Gendarmerie arrived in the border communities of Fass Abdou in Lower Fulladu, Jahanka in Upper Fulladu and Wuropana in Niamina. In some locations, the security personnel traveled in more than thirteen military vehicles and were fully armed. They warned farmers to stop cultivating the land immediately, claiming the plots form part of Senegalese territory and that no Gambian may farm there without official approval.
Residents of the affected villages rejected the claims outright. They maintained that the farmlands in question are ancestral holdings cultivated by their forefathers long before independence and that successive Senegalese administrations had never previously interfered. Many families had already sown seeds for the current rainy season and now face the prospect of significant losses if forced to abandon their crops.
Amat Sey, a native of Fass Abdou, confirmed the intrusion into local farmlands. He said the Gendarmerie instructed residents to cease all farming activity at once or face consequences. “They claimed the farmlands are in Senegalese territories and that no Gambian is allowed to do farming on their lands without approval,” Sey told TAT. He dismissed the assertion as baseless, insisting the plots are inherited family lands used for decades without hindrance.
Sey revealed that more than half of the villagers in Fass Abdou had already planted their fields on the contested ground. The community has unanimously resolved to continue farming “come rain or hell,” he added, warning that tensions could escalate without prompt government intervention.
Alhagie Sey, also from Fass Abdou, described a similar encounter. He and members of his family were working on their fields when the Gendarmerie arrived. “The Gendarmerie came with more than thirteen vehicles; they were fully armed.
Immediately they arrived, they called our attention and advised us to leave the lands as they are in Senegalese territory,” he recounted. Alhagie Sey said he told the officers the demand was impossible because the land belonged to his family. “They are our ancestral lands, and no amount of pressure can make us abandon those lands,” he declared. The gendarmes nevertheless persisted, warning that any farmer found working the plots on a subsequent visit would bear full responsibility for the consequences.
According to Alhagie Sey, nearly twenty families in Fass Abdou alone have been affected. He argued that failure by Gambian authorities to counter the order would inflict grievous economic losses on local farmers and neighboring villages whose lands have likewise been claimed.
In Wuropana, Niamina, Aji Sallah corroborated the reports in a viral audio recording obtained by TAT. She stated that officers arrived in three fully loaded vehicles, crossed the farmlands, and ordered residents to abandon the plots because they lay inside Senegalese territory.
Sallah firmly rejected the claim, emphasizing that her family and fellow villagers had cultivated the land for generations without any interference from Senegalese authorities. She described the situation as deteriorating rapidly and called for urgent government action, adding that the people of Wuropana would never surrender their ancestral farmlands and were prepared to face whatever consequences followed.
Malick Sowe of Jahanka in Upper Fulladu provided a matching account. He said more than thirteen vehicles carrying Senegalese gendarmes descended on local fields and ordered farmers to vacate. Sowe stressed that the land in question had always belonged to the people of Jahanka and had been farmed for decades without challenge from previous Senegalese governments.
He urged swift intervention by Gambian authorities to prevent rising tension, noting that many farmers remain in a state of shock and disbelief at the sudden claims.
Other affected farmers who spoke with TAT expressed identical sentiments. Across the three districts, residents emphasized that the disputed plots form the backbone of household food security and income. With seeds already in the ground and the rainy season underway, any forced abandonment would translate into immediate hardship. Several speakers warned that prolonged uncertainty could heighten friction between border communities and the visiting security forces.
The reported incidents have underscored longstanding sensitivities along sections of the Gambia-Senegal border where traditional land-use patterns sometimes intersect with formal boundary demarcations. Local voices consistently maintain that the current claims represent a departure from past practice and that the lands have never been the subject of official dispute in living memory.
Farmers stressed that their determination to continue cultivating the fields is rooted not in confrontation but in the practical necessity of feeding their families and honoring generational stewardship of the soil.
Community leaders and ordinary cultivators alike have appealed for the Gambian government to engage urgently with Senegalese counterparts, clarify the status of the contested areas and protect the rights of citizens whose livelihoods hang in the balance. Without such intervention, they caution, the situation risks escalating beyond verbal warnings into deeper communal strain. For now, the farmers of Fass Abdou, Jahanka and Wuropana say they remain on their ancestral fields, ready to work the land as their forefathers did, while awaiting official action to resolve the sudden and unsettling claims.
