Barrow urged to resolve Sankullay-Kunda, YBK land dispute

Ebrima Jaiteh, a native of Sankullay- Kunda, with relatives from neighbouring Yoroberri-Kunda, YBK, has written an open letter to President Barrow urging him to take interest in a land dispute between the two communities with a view to resolving it peacefully.

In the letter obtained by The Standard, Ebrima Jaiteh traced the current resurgent of the conflict back to around 2017 when a man from YBK went with a donkey cart intending to collect sand from a sand mining site between the two villages only to be confronted by people  from Sankulllay-Kunda who demanded payment for each trip of sand collected from the site which they claimed belong to their village.

”From that moment, old and forgotten disputes between the two villages came up again, with each side putting claim on parts of land in or around the two villages. Even government institutions such a as the Forest camp and the Veterinary camp both of which are officially recognised to be in YBK are now being contested to be historically  stationed on lands belonging to Sankullay Kunda,” Jaiteh wrote.

He also said even cemeteries and rice fields are being contested between the two villages.

Jaiteh, a former police investigation  officer, explained that before he travelled to Holland in 2024, where he now resides, he had made numerous efforts to get elders from the two communities to resolve the matter before it degenerates into something serious as everyone in each of the two villages is related to people in the other.” The matter has been brought to the attention of various governors and other local authorities in the area but no definitive solution has been found, leaving lingering  occasional tensions,” Jaiteh said.

He revealed that from his recollections from history, even President Barrow has family members in both communities and therefore has all moral rights to seek peace between them.” I am not raising false alarm or taking sides but I am sincerely seeking for a peaceful resolution and I call you to investigate the matter and help establish a clear boundary between the two villages to avoid the conflict getting out of hand,” Jaiteh tells  the president.