A mass grave containing the bodies of 12 west Africans allegedly killed by a paramilitary force controlled by the former president Yahya Jammeh has been identified near the Gambian capital, Banjul. The “Junglers”, a notorious hit squad that answered only to Jammeh, executed 54 people who were trying to make their way to Spain by sea in 2005, suspecting them of being mercenaries trying to overthrow the government, according to human rights groups that interviewed 30 Gambian officials.The only survivor of the massacre told the Guardian that he and his friends were arrested at sea and tortured before being driven to a forest, where they were kill

“Once we entered the navy boat, the torture started,” said Martin Kyere, who is from Ghana. “When we landed in Banjul, we found a lot of military men waiting on the shore, armed with guns and cutlasses.”

He said that on the way to the forest, when a fellow captive complained that he was in pain, one of the military men lunged at him with his cutlass. “His arm nearly fell off his body,” Kyere said. “All of us were tied by our hands. I succeeded in untying myself and fled.”  Just before he jumped off, his friends whispered to him, asking him to find their families if he made it back to Ghana, and tell them what had happened. As he ran, behind him he heard the others crying, “Oh God, help us!” Then he heard gunshots. Over the course of a week, near Banjul as well as Jammeh’s home town of Kanilai, the Junglers killed all 54 people, according to the human rights groups. Most of their bodies have never been found.(theguardian)…[+]