Gambia: tourists scramble for flights out as troops mass at border [View all]
Source: The Guardian
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.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/18/british-tourists-crowd-banjul-airport-the-gambia-evacuation-flights
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