The Gambia - Victims and Resisters

The Gambia, West Africa is a popular winter-sun holiday destination for Europeans. But, most tourists have little idea of the dark and shattered underbelly of 'The Smiling Coast of Africa', as the Gambia is fondly called. From 1994 -2017 President Yahya Jammeh ruled the Gambia, as his own fiefdom, crushing dissent, and opposition, with brutality. His personal hit squad and National Intelligence Agency carried out tortures, assassinations, and acts of sexual violence with impunity - journalists were gunned down and disappeared, students shot in cold blood, and even his own cousins were murdered on his order. The portraits and collected testimonies are part of an ongoing body of work to tell the stories of the victims and resisters. The work aims to expose the wide-reaching forms and scale of human rights abuses under the Jammeh's regime - to create a historical archive and as a tool for advocacy.