Victims’ Center Slams Gov’t Over Failure to Declare April 10–11 School Holidays
Victim Center’s Kebba Jome at a sensitisation © Askanwi
By Edward Francis Dalliah, Jr.
The Coordinator of the Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations (Victims’ Center), Mr Kebba Jome, has criticised the government for failing to implement key recommendations of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), notably the declaration of April 10th or 11th as official school holidays to commemorate the 2000 student massacre.
Mr Jome made the remarks during a Musical Caravan outreach in Sabach Njien, North Bank Region, on 16th January 2026, where he addressed community members and victims on remembrance, accountability, and the government’s obligation to honour victims of past human rights violations during former President Jammeh’s regime.
He told community members and victims that “the government accepted these recommendations, but many remain unfulfilled.” He pointed out that implementing recommendations like “declaring April 10th or 11th as school holidays is not hard, yet it has not been done.”
The April 10th–11th, 2000, student massacre, in which security forces killed and injured students during protests, remains one of the darkest chapters in the country’s human rights history. In its final report in Volume 6, the TRRC recommended that the Ministries of Basic and Secondary Education and Higher Education consider declaring one or both days as school holidays or introduce alternative memorialisation measures to ensure remembrance and non-recurrence.
The Commission further urged education authorities to establish student engagement mechanisms and promote civic education to prevent similar violations in the future. Reacting to these recommendations, the government, in its White Paper, formally accepted them and committed to implementing them as part of a national memorialisation plan.
According to the government’s implementation plan, the implementation was scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2023, within a broader 2023–2027 timeline. However, as of January 2026, no visible progress has been made, despite repeated appeals from victims, families of those killed, and civil society organisations.
The issue resurfaced publicly in a 2nd December 2025 publication by The Standard, which reported that Sainey Senghore, a survivor of the April 10th–11th violence, had renewed calls for the days to be officially recognised as school holidays.
Senghore was quoted as saying, “I have not seen acknowledgement from the government about this proposal, which would show that they accept and have taken responsibility for what happened in line with the implementation of the TRRC recommendations.”
This raises questions on the government’s commitment to honour the victims of April 10th and 11th despite accepting the TRRC recommendation and committing to its implementation nearly a decade ago. For Mr Jome and other victims’ advocates, the continued delay raises serious questions about “the government’s political will to honour its commitments”.
They argue that declaring April 10th or 11th as school holidays is a ‘low-hanging fruit and easy to implement without requiring much funding.’ Mr Jome noted that “Remembrance is part of justice, and when the state fails to remember, it risks repeating the same mistakes.”
