Gambia-Senegal Border Undemarcated Since 1905, Says Historian

There has been no formal boundary demarcation exercise between The Gambia and Senegal for more than a century, according to Hassoum Ceesay, Director General of the National Centre for Arts and Culture (NCAC). Ceesay said the only known demarcation exercise was carried out in 1904 and 1905, when The Gambia was under British colonial rule, and Senegal was administered by France. He is among the officials involved in the current joint boundary exercise, which is seeking to identify and document old boundary pillars along the two countries' shared border. Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn According to Ceesay, the exercise is challenging because some of the original pillars have disappeared or been removed over the years, while the work has also been taking place during the rainy season. "It's a hard job trying to retrace the boundary pillars, some of which have been removed by inhabitants and developers," Ceesay said. "The other challenge we have is the timing of the exercise. It fell inside the rainy season. At times we enter bushy areas just to find the pillars." The current exercise gained renewed attention following a confrontation in July 2026 at the Gambian military barracks in Bullock, Foni, after Senegalese troops allegedly bulldozed part of the facility. The incident triggered renewed discussions about the need to establish and clearly mark the border between the two countries. Ceesay said the incident could have been avoided if successive governments had undertaken a formal boundary demarcation exercise. "I fully agree. If they, the two countries' past leaders, had done a transparent boundary demarcation exercise, then what happened at Bullock would never have happened," he said. He said the current exercise is the first joint undertaking of its kind between the two countries since the colonial-era work of 1904 and 1905. Ceesay said The Gambia had retained official documents relating to the colonial boundary, which he said were handed down from the British administration. He contrasted this with Senegal's records, saying the material inherited from the French administration was incomplete. "That's why during the 2026 joint boundary exercise, we as a country have the official boundary document as proof of the agreed century-old colonial binding document," he said. "But Senegal, through their university professor tasked to represent Dakar in this exercise, didn't have as much information and couldn't produce the amount of information that we have got from our nation's archives." Ceesay said the Senegalese expert had at times sought information from the Gambian side because of the records held in The Gambia. He said the historical documents had been important in helping the two sides identify the location of old boundary pillars. The current exercise is being carried out by a joint commission from the two countries. Ceesay said the teams had so far covered about 30 kilometres of the more than 700-kilometre land border. He said disagreements had emerged during the exercise but were being resolved through discussion. "We have disagreements, but we always find common ground to agree, and then it will be signed by the witnesses from Ghana and Burkina Faso," he said. The two countries invited representatives from Ghana and Burkina Faso to participate in the process, Ceesay said, because both countries had experience dealing with border disputes. "Because the two countries once had border problems, it was sensible to invite them to share the models they used to settle their differences during the Ghana-Togo border crisis and the Mali-Burkina Faso border war in which some lives were lost 40 years ago," he said. Ceesay said the work was demanding and that it was not yet clear when the next phase would begin or when the entire exercise would be completed. He said the rainy season had made the work more difficult but that the teams would resume when conditions improved. "The prevailing conditions in the rainy s