By Joyce Gyekye
They were stigmatised, maltreated, and faced severe hardship when they migrated to the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau after an outbreak of violence between government forces of Senegal and the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MDFC) in the early 1990s. Upon their arrival home, the people of Boffa Bayotte, a fringe community of the Bayotte Forest in the Nyassia district of Ziguinchor in Casamance, Senegal, are tagged murderers and, as a result, discriminated against for a crime they didn’t commit.
HISTORY
On January 6, 2018, 14 people were gruesomely murdered while in search of firewood in the Bayotte Forest, which is bordered by six communities, including Boffa Bayotte, Toubacouta, Katoure, and Badem. The people of Boffa Bayotte were blamed for the murder due to misrepresentation in the media, as the journalists who reported on the incident were oblivious to the geography of the area regarding the name of the forest, which is Bayotte, and the community, Boffa Bayotte. The forest, which is about 936 hectares, is rich with precious wood, including rosewood and teak, which is a source of revenue for the MFDC and illegal wood cutters. As a classified forest, logging is prohibited, but teak and other tree species were found in the market, leading to accusations and counter-accusations as to who the culprits of the illegal activities were: the separatist group, the community bordering the forest, or illegal loggers from The Gambia, hence the violence. The 14 people who were murdered were in the Bayotte Forest in search of dry wood for their energy needs and to sell for their livelihoods. Seven people sustained various degrees of injuries, while three escaped.
The Chief of Boffa Bayotte, Edouard Dasylva, in an emotional narrative of the incident, through an interpreter to a group of journalists from Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Senegal, was emphatic that no member of the community was involved in the gruesome murder of the 14 people. The journalists were on a field trip to the community as part of a programme dubbed “Engaging Media and Minorities to Act for Peacebuilding, EMMP Project”.
Chief Dasylva blamed the separatist group, MFDC, for the heinous crime due to the way the 14 people were executed. He said that with no voice to tell their side of the story, the misinformation gained root. The chief said, “January 6th, 2018 is one of the saddest moments in my life, and I couldn’t have been able to narrate the incident if you had come a day after the incident.”
He said that following the incident, people in the community were discriminated against regarding employment, access to health facilities, and better education. They are stigmatised as well for the murder, which was not committed by any member of Boffa Bayotte.
“When you show your identity card in seeking a job or any kind of support or service and it’s identified that you’re from Bofa Bayotte, you are denied that opportunity or support as we are perceived as bad people,” the chief lamented.
Chief Dasylva, responding to a question on a health facility, described their prevailing as a “disaster “. He explained, “Pregnant women in the village have to be carried on bikes to a nearby village for critical maternal care.”
With a trembling voice, the Chief noted, “We have accepted our situation if this is our destiny to go through the ordeal of discrimination and rejection.” With the resilience to endure all that life has thrown at them, he stated, “I will be glad to see the inhabitants of three other communities that have left their habitats come back for us to live in harmony.”
Another expectation of the Chief is for the government to agree to reclassify a portion of the forest as productive for 25 villages based on decentralised governance for revenue generation.
“An agreement has been developed, and if that is agreed on, it will have an impact on the community, but for now, there’s nothing concrete,” he stated.
A veteran journalist in Senegal, Ibrahim Gassama, who led the group of journalists for the EMMP project to Boffa Bayotte, said that in seeking justice for the victims of the attack, 16 people were arrested, of whom two, including a journalist, were sentenced to life in prison.
