UK Foreign Office warns against all but essential travel to the Gambia after Senegal says it will act if president refuses to accept election defeat

Tourists and Gambians have scrambled to leave the west African country after the Senegalese army said its forces would cross the border if long-time president Yahya Jammeh did not stand down.

Last-ditch efforts by the leaders of Mauritania and Senegal to persuade Jammeh to step aside peacefully after ruling for more than two decades appeared to have failed early on Thursday.

As tourists were evacuated amid scenes of chaos at Banjul airport, Col Abdou Ndiaye, a spokesman for the Senegalese army, said troops were at the Gambian border and would enter the country at midnight if the deadline for a transfer of power passed. “We are ready,” he told Reuters. “If no political solution is found, we will step in.”



Soldiers from Nigeria, Mali, Togo, Ghana and Senegal make up the regional force, but it is being headed by a Senegalese general and has the backing of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which has repeatedly called on Jammeh to stand down.



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The Gambia has been in a state of political uncertainty since Jammeh, who lost the December election to coalition leader Adama Barrow, said he would not step down. He has so far refused to cede power, using the courts and parliament to try to extend his 22-year rule.

In a last-ditch attempt to persuade Jammeh to accept a deal and leave the country, the president of Mauritania flew in, was met by the justice minister, one of the few members of Jammeh’s government who has not resigned and fled the country, and went straight to State House.

Jammeh’s official mandate ends at midnight on Wednesday, but members of the opposition remained hopeful that he would go peacefully, with Mauritanian president Mohamed Abdul Aziz, rather than face war.



“He’s been calling [Ecowas’s] bluff but I don’t think he wants to die,” said James Gomez, a senior member of the coalition that is poised to govern the country.

However Abdul Aziz later left the talks and did not take Jammeh with him.



Gambia’s army chief said on Wednesday that he would not order his men to fight other African troops if they enter Gambian territory. “We are not going to involve ourselves militarily. This is a political dispute,” said the chief of defence staff, Ousman Badjie, according to witnesses who spoke to Agence France-Presse.



“I am not going to involve my soldiers in a stupid fight. I love my men,” he added, stopping to pose for selfies with admirers, according to the report. “If they [Senegalese] come in, we are here like this,” Badjie said, making a hands up to surrender gesture.



On Tuesday Jammeh announced a national state of emergency, prompting the Foreign Office to change its travel advice and warn against all but essential travel to the Gambia.

On Wednesday British tourists were boarding buses from resorts across the country, as tour operators decided to evacuate their customers.



Thomas Cook said a programme of additional flights into Banjul airport would bring home 1,000 holidaymakers it had in the Gambia, followed by up to 2,500 more at the “earliest possible flight availability”.

Barrow, who is currently in Senegal, will return to the Gambia on Thursday to be sworn in as president regardless of whether or not Jammeh leaves.

But Gomez said Barrow’s swearing-in as president would not be held in the national stadium as planned, but at a secret location.

“We cannot risk bringing people to the stadium,” he said. “It’s not in our hands; it’s in Ecowas’s hands. They want us to follow the constitution, which states that the president’s term ends at midnight.”

In recent days fears of violence have prompted tens of thousands of people, many of them children, to flee the Gambia through its land borders. Neighbouring Senegal on Wednesday presented a draft resolution to the UN security council seeking support for Ecowas’s efforts to press Jammeh to step down.

British tourists planning on soaking up some winter sun learned on Wednesday morning that they would be evacuated after the country’s embattled president announced a national state of emergency.

“This never happened before,” said Robert Gwynne, a tourist from Swindon who has been coming to the Gambia for 11 years and who had to leave two days into his two-week holiday. “I don’t understand what’s going on. The government shouldn’t have let it go this far. This place is going to be dead. I feel sorry for everybody here. It’s going to take years for tourism to pick up again. I’ll make the effort, but only if I’m 110% sure it’s safe.”

Local hotel staff were worried that their livelihoods were at risk. “I’m very sad. We don’t want our guests to go,” said a porter at one of the hotels. “And us Gambians have to stay. It’s our country and there’s nowhere to go. It’s dangerous. But in three days it will be over.”

Banjul airport was in chaos, full of tourists trying to manoeuvre their luggage to the few check-in desks, many not knowing whether they would get on a flight. Few were appraised of the political situation.

“We had a rough idea, but the guy who was supposed to have left hasn’t left, has he?” said Phil Denton from Southampton, who was sunbathing shirtless outside the airport. “I’m more worried about the airport, to be honest. It’s the ideal situation for a terrorist attack.”



Charlotte Burril tried to navigate her bags through one of the snaking queues of tourists, having learned just a few hours earlier that she would have to get on a plane out. She had not anticipated that being on holiday at the same time as the planned handover of power would be a problem. “We didn’t think it was much of a risk, really. The sad thing is the impact on the staff. As long as nothing actually happens, as long as it blows over, I’d come back,” she said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A group of British tourists wait for their bags to be unloaded from a coach at Banjul airport. Photograph: The Guardian

Nevertheless, the impact of the unrest on Gambian tourism will be long-lasting, according to Sheikh Tejan Nyang, vice-chair of a tourism association in the Gambia.

“It’s too late,” he said. “If [Jammeh] doesn’t leave by today we’ll have to get these guys to get him out. I am sure that won’t take long, but the damage has already been done. There is panic.

“With all the tour operators withdrawing clients, it’s going to be a big blow. Most of the hotels will close, people will lose their jobs and be living in hardship.”

Tourism accounts for 18-20% of the country’s revenue. Nyang said he thought it would drop to less than half that and would have to be rebuilt just as it was after the coup in which Jammeh took power in 1994.



Jammeh was personally to blame, he said. “He is the biggest culprit. He is the worst enemy of this country, and he has disappointed the country. People have changed their minds. They have had 22 years of dictatorship and they say enough.”

Outside the terminal, Jammeh’s plane sat on the tarmac, as it has done for the past two weeks, according to airport officials. The president, who could face prosecution for the arrests and disappearances that happened during his tenure, has received several offers of asylum from other countries, in particular Morocco, but has so far not taken them up.

Diplomatic sources said Jammeh had agreed to take the Morocco option if he lost his court case challenging the election result, but as there are no judges currently sitting in the supreme court that will not be resolved until May. On Tuesday parliament approved the motion for a state of emergency, which Jammeh argues extends his mandate for 90 days.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest President Yahya Jammeh’s plane at the airport in Banjul, where it has been parked for two weeks. Photograph: The Guardian

Negotiations were taking place up to the last minute, according to Nigeria’s foreign minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, who told the Guardian that the presidents of Guinea and Mauritania had been tasked with calling Jammeh and were offering him a “soft landing” – asylum – in their countries.

“We really want to exhaust the diplomatic options,” he said. “The deadline is fast approaching, but at the same time contingency plans are being drawn up and anything could happen. We really just have to assess the situation on its merits at any given time, weigh the costs and the benefits and then [make] a political decision as to what steps to take.”

He compared the situation with that in Ivory Coast, where former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept the 2010 election result and was later arrested.

“What’s different about this [situation] is that right from the very beginning Ecowas heads of state have taken responsibility for negotiating and finding a solution – they’ve been engaged from the get-go,” Onyeama said.

Regional defence chiefs met a few days ago and discussed political, military and humanitarian scenarios.

Gomez said that later, when the situation had calmed down, the opposition coalition would “invite all Gambians to a proper inauguration” to celebrate.

“We’ve won these elections free and fair and we must protect those votes. It is [Jammeh’s] right to go to court, but it does not stop the inauguration of the elected president,” he said.