By Zainab Jobarteh
Tomorrow is International Women’s Day, a global holiday celebrated annually on March 8 to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women; but also a moment to bring attention to the plight of women: violence and abuse against women.
In it is along this spirit that we bring you the harrowing stories of three young women vendors, residents of Sukuta who were recently attacked by armed robbers while going to the market. It happened in an isolated neighborhood, a field between Sukuta and Tippa Garage, commonly known as ‘mboyo field’.
Fatou Sanneh, 23, is one of the victims. She buys vegetables at the Tippa Garage market where she in turn sells them. She was 9 months pregnant at the time of the attack. Fatou explained that because of the nature of their business, they set out in the early hours of the morning and the routes they use are usually very lonely during these hours.
“I saw three young men coming towards us in the field, but I thought they were harmless. However, my friends ran, but I could not because of my pregnancy. I only began to run when I heard one of them say they were going to kill us,’’ she narrated.
Fatou said after running for a while, she stopped because she was struggling to breath and that was how her bag was taken from her. According to her, the bag had her phone and the money she was supposed to use to buy vegetables for that day, an amount of D1000.
Out of concern for her, one of her friends stopped running to see what had happened to her. Fatou said one of the robbers who had a cutlass in his hand ran after her friend.
“She came back to see what happened to me and that was how she was hurt on her wrist and her leg. They took all our money and mobile phones,’’ she lamented.
Fatou said they reported the incident at the Bakoteh Police but nothing was done about it. “We were just given a report to go to the hospital for our wounds. We never heard from them again”.
Asked whether it affected her pregnancy, Fatou said she had abdomenal pain but it stopped after a while. She has now given birth and hopes to go back to business when she is strong again.
Jankey Dampha, 26, is another victim who sustained serious injuries from the attack. Though she was the first to run because she felt their actions were suspicious, she had to go back to see what happened to her pregnant friend.
“I ran as soon as I saw them, but I did not escape. I saw that my friend was slow so I went back to check on her. One of the men asked me to give him my bag and I refused. He hit me with his cutlass on my wrist and my leg, took my bag from me and left,” Jankey explained.
Jankey’s wounds are healing and though she has started going back to the market, she said she is still afraid something like that might happened again. According to her, they are not the only victims of attack in that neighborhood.
She revealed that another woman was attacked on the same day as them, and her injury was so bad that she was admitted at the hospital.
While some market vendors fear how the rise of commodities might affect their business, these women cry for security against armed robbers.
The ‘mboyo’ field has become a death trap for the women ‘banabanas’ who make early rush to the market via the now-dangerous route, for their retail vegetable business. These are poor struggling women who are sacrificing for the good of family and children, and what would not need the most, is violent attacks on the way. Judging by their wounds, the trio would have been killed had they resisted any further.
When contacted, the Police PRO could not give any detail about the incident because he said he has not been privy to information about the incident. The security must urgently rid that place of armed bandits before innocent women would lose their lives.