In Monday’s exclusive, European Union Ambassador to The Gambia, Hon. Attila Lajos told forGambia News that there will be no deportation of Gambians from European Countries as long as the current situation posed by Covid-19 remains.

The ambassador was quick to interject for a rephrasing of terminology when asked, “If the Backway Boys will be shipped back” given current circumstances, the duration of which no one knows yet.

He puts it, “No one is shipping anybody back,” for a better phraseology much milder than this interviewer voiced it to the ambassador. He made it clear that in the event that the pandemic is over and European countries are to resume the deportations, his office would be informed.

He said the E.U has been collaborating with other world bodies such as the International Organization for Migrants (IOM) for reintegration avenues once returnees jet back to home soil. Programs such as skills training were mentioned as feasible ventures.

The ambassador dismissed information that cash packages are waiting for returnees to start their own businesses once back in The Gambia. He said he was not aware of such as far as the European Union is concerned. 

Even European citizens stranded in The Gambia during the pandemic and wanting to go home were not getting things free. “Nothing is free,” the ambassador retorts, adding that before each E.U citizen boarded a return flight from The Gambia these days, he or she was informed to make a pledge of refunding some money to the various home governments bringing in those flights to The Gambia.

He said the Belgian, German, and Deutsch governments were some of the member countries that provided such flights to their citizens in The Gambia that transported over one thousand tourists back home in recent ten days. The rest of the interview with the ambassador will be aired on forGambia soon.