How I remember my friend, the brave journalist Deyda Hydara

By Dilip -

Early in the morning of 17 December 2004, I woke up to a phone call from a Western diplomat. She asked me what I had heard about Deyda Hydara, a journalist and a mutual friend. “No, I am just back from an overseas trip and I have not yet spoken to him,” I replied. “Anything the matter with him?” She just told me to find out and get back to her. I called Pap Saine, Deyda’s colleague and childhood friend. He said: “They shot him dead last night.”

I jumped out of bed, hastily dressed and rushed to the mortuary at the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital in Banjul where his body lay. Assembled there were several people – mainly journalists, his friends and family – nearly all confused as to who would kill such a friendly and peaceful soul, and why.

At the time of his death, Deyda was managing editor of The Point, one of The Gambia’s leading independent daily newspapers, which he had founded on 16 December 1991 together with Pap Saine and Baboucarr Gaye. It was therefore on the 13th anniversary of The Point, while he was driving home from the celebrations, that unidentified assassins ambushed him and shot him dead…

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/podcasts/podcast-killing-the-truth/how-i-remember-my-friend-the-brave-journalist-deyda-hydara/


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