With a teary eye, Aminatta Manneh looked at her bundled wares seized by the Gambian police in Old Yundum as they enforced a partial ban on non-essential market activities, warning people to stay at home in view of the threat posed by the coronavirus.
Ms. Manneh saw herself as a helpless victim of the latest clampdown on roadside sellers failing to heed the partial lockdown declared by the state in its desperate bid to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
The COVID-19 pandemic which has ravaged much of the world with some 49, 000 deaths since December reached The Gambia last month with the number of confirmed cases at four so far.
Africa’s smallest country has registered one death from the pandemic, a Bangladeshi man who travelled to the country last month infected with the virus.
Since then a few more cases have surfaced, two of them discharged after their recovery and another still being treated, heightening fears that there could be more, given the country’s porous border with neighbouring Senegal where over 150 confirmed cases have been reported.
This has left Gambian health authorities scrambling for a response, introducing precautionary measures against its further spread including an indefinite partial lockdown on non-essential trading and other activities tied to the local economy but with a tendency to attract huge crowds.
Thus whole business districts in urban Gambia have been deserted with hawkers, carpenters, welders, bicycle repairers, firewood sellers, tailors and dealers in non-essential non-food items forced to close shop and stay at home indefinitely.
Like other fellow food sellers near her who had managed to defy the ban, Ms. Manneh’s pot of bean stew and loaves of bread had been taken away by the police with strict instructions to clamp down on roadside traders who may attract crowds and thus undermine the social or physical distancing being encouraged among people to minimise or eliminate contaminations through person-to-person contacts.
The mother of four is the sole breadwinner of her family of ten, including two young sisters and three other dependents.
She was rendered a widow when her husband died three years ago while on the perilous ‘backway’ journey to Europe where his family had hoped he would come good economically and take care of them back home in The Gambia.
Since his absence, Ms. Manneh has been fending for the family, selling bread spread with cooked beans to her customers including masons, drivers, labourers, vendors and other workers.
“You tell us to stay at home but what can a poor woman like me do to put food on the table for my family” she said, directing her words to the station officer who was gazing at another seller protecting her wares in front of the building housing the Old Yundum police station, 27km south of the capital Banjul.
By now other sellers under the same predicament were in the mood for a fight, one of them literally engaged in a tug of war with two plain clothes police officers holding onto her tied pots and pans.
Among them were also breadwinners whose husbands were out of the country or jobless and therefore without the means to cope with the implications of the new restrictions.
“Tell Barrow to give us something to live on after asking us to stay at home….some of us cant afford to stay away from our trades because this would mean we cant get fish money to feed our families” one of them complained.
Many among the crowd of onlookers shook their head in agreement before a group of police officers charged at them with a reminder that they should not be hobbled close together., maximising the risk of infection from any undetected case in their midst.
As many of them hurried away in different directions, the noise generated by the protesting food sellers detained with their wares and officers insisting on carrying out orders from above echoed into the Old Yundum neighbourhood where traffic had wound down to a few vehicles and even fewer pedestrians.
While many affected by the restrictions have been reticent about the consequences for their businesses, others have complained that it would turn them into destitute given that it was depriving them of their daily bread.
“This wealthy man’s disease is affecting poor people like us in many different ways” said a young man who has been selling cafe on a canteen on wheels for over three years and thought the state should have prepared a package for those who would inevitably be deprived of their daily livelihoods as a result of the restrictive measures.
After being detained for several hours, Ms Manneh and other food sellers were eventually allowed to leave but only after agreeing not to return to the spots where crowds of people had gathered around them.
Following new restrictions, it is forbidden for more than five people to gather in one spot while bars, restaurants, nightclubs, gymnasiums, cinemas, video parlours and other social centres have been ordered to close for the next few weeks.
Congregational prayers are being discouraged.
There is an effort by the government to extend these restrictions to three months with approval being sought from the National Assembly.
For Idrissa Gibba, who hawks medicinal ointments in the area, there is no point compromising with law enforcers over his means of livelihood especially when the government will not line his pocket during the lockdown to take care of his large family.
A defiant-sounding Gibba told the African Press Agency that he had been involved in an altercation with the police while he hawked non-prescribed menthol products, a trade he has been engaged in for over 15 years.
“If they give me something to feed my family for a month, I will duly oblige and stay at home without any fuss” the 54-year old suggested.
There are reports from Gambia’s constantly churning rumour mill suggesting that the international community has given millions of dollars to the government to help people deal with the uncomfortable readjustments to their lives.
While this cannot be verified, it seems many people adversely affected by the new restrictions are increasingly clinging onto this hope (false or otherwise) for help as a means of cushioning the effects of the restrictions which have deprived them of their livelihoods, a week into their introduction.
“The fact that these restrictions are indefinite makes it even more challenging” said a distraught Ms. Manneh, staring into the distance.
WN/as/APA