Nessim Fishing and Fish Processing began operating in the coastal town of Sanyang in 2018.1 Almost immediately, local residents took issue with the facility. While Nessim was required by the National Environmental Agency to “demonstrate public consultation was done before working on a project,” many local residents directly affected by the factory said that they were not aware of the factory’s potential existence until construction was underway. Nessim said that it had held a series of meetings with the community before opening the factory and that they had reached a “cordial agreement.”2
The Nessim plant was built on land designated as a community rice field by a former Gambian president, according to the women who previously worked in the rice fields and who were interviewed by Amnesty International for a 2023 report. The field was destroyed when the factory was built, and though the company “gave compensation at the time… it was not satisfactory for the women.”3
When Nessim opened, many local residents of Sanyang thought it would be a source of employment for locals, though it does not appear that the factory provided many jobs to Sanyang residents. Muhammed Jabang, an activist who had protested for the closure of the Nessim factory, said that the plant only permanently employed five people, according to an interview with The Republic in 2024.4 The fishers who supply Nessim are also not from Sanyang, or from Gambia at all; Nessim mainly employs Senegalese fishers. As a result, many small-scale fishers and fish-smoking workers were forced out of their lifelong profession.5 The plant has been, “claiming to give employment to the community, but all employment is given to the Senegalese and other people,” a village leader said in a report for Amnesty International in 2023.6 A local environmental activist added that as a result, and for the first time, many young Sanyang residents were leaving the area due to a lack of work. “Now the local fishers, instead of building their boats for fishing, they build them to sell tickets for the youth to migrate. Just recently, 150 of our youth left for Spain. It is a new business because fishing is not good anymore,” he told Amnesty International.7
Strong odor and smoke from fishmeal production severely impacted local tourism.8 Overfishing by the factory and foreign trawlers led to a shortage of fish and a rise in its cost, according to a local lodge owner who spoke to Amnesty International.9 Owners of local restaurants, and those operating in the tourism industry also saw their business slow after Nessim set up shop. One restaurant owner whose restaurant was located 100 meters, approximately 328 feet, away from the Nessim plant said that “the smoke coming from the factory, the dead fish thrown by fishers when Nessim decided not to take the fish drove tourists away from the local shops and the beaches of Sanyang,” according to Fair Planet.10
Women working in gardens behind the factory said the “odorous pollution coming from the factory” made it more difficult to grow vegetables, and caused “an increase in pests infecting their vegetables,” according to Amnesty International, which forced them to purchase and use pesticides frequently for the first time, cutting into their profits. The women in the gardens also complained about the smell of the factory and said that the smoke had detrimental effects on their health. One woman said that the smoke “gives problem with our chest,” according to Amnesty International.11
For years, Sanyang residents sounded alarms about Nessim’s damage to the area’s environment. They accused the factory of dumping untreated waste onto the town’s beach, which, in addition to devastating the local tourism industry, was linked to mass mortalities of fish and birds.12 Ahmed Manjang, a microbiologist who tested a sample of Nessim’s wastewater in 2018, found that the water contained high levels of arsenic and phosphate, which is often a by-product of fish waste.13
The National Environmental Agency has fined Nessim for environmental infractions repeatedly in the years since it opened. In 2018, the Nessim’s first year of operation, the plant’s license was suspended for not having the proper wastewater treatment facilities, following a June 2018 visit from the National Assembly Select Committee on the Environment, which reported that the wastewater was being dumped into Sanyang’s roads and vegetable gardens. On June 30, 2018, a group of demonstrators in Sanyang protested in response to the allegations. The area was closed in July 2018 for almost six months while a new pipe taking waste from the factory into the sea was constructed. After the pipe was completed and approved by the National Environmental Agency, the factory reopened.14
In 2020, Nessim was fined twice for inadequate treatment of wastewater.15
On several occasions between 2019 and 2021, local news outlets reported that scores of dead fish had washed up on the beaches in Sanyang.16 On each occasion, it seemed that the dead fish were “the result of overfishing by fishers, who… dumped their catches at sea,” after Nessim turned their catch away due to an excess of fish, and the fish were not suitable for market, according to Foroyaa, a Gambian newspaper.17 A fisher who worked with Nessim said that fishers would “throw fish into the sea if [Nessim didn’t] take it…if they don’t take it and it is not good for the market, we throw it into the sea,” in an interview with Amnesty International.18 Lamin Jawla, the owner of the Rainbow Lodge, next door to the Nessim factory, worried that “Very soon business will be no more at Sanyang beach…The amount of dead fish on our beach causes bad smells and is so disheartening that tourists don’t like to go to the beach or swim,” in an interview with Dialogue Earth.19 Kebba Bojang, the owner of the nearby Jungle Beach Bar and Restaurant, said that there was “nothing on our beaches but dead fish. I will always blame it on the Fishmeal factories… I was born and brought up from Sanyang and I have never seen this large-scale fish depletion until the existence of these Factories in our beaches.” In a June 2021 interview with Foroyaa, Bojang told the newspaper that the community had raised their concerns over the dead fish to the Ministry of Fisheries, but nothing happened.20
Among the fish dumped by the fishers are pelagic fish which would normally be eaten by the people in Sanyang and are already overexploited, and juvenile fish, which threatens the ability of the fish stock to replenish itself. Nessim targets sardinella and bonga, which the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) considers overexploited. Additionally, Nessim’s fishers “use nets with a very small mesh size,” which trap juvenile fish, despite the fact that Gambia has set regulations on mesh sizes.21
In April 2020, Sanyang residents protested after Nessim resumed operations after a brief pause in production due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Kabba Bojang, the owner of a local restaurant, said that the “government cannot ask Gambians to stay at home and implement the social distancing and hand washing guidelines recommended by the World Health Organization and allow a busy factory to start operations without any health safety measure,” according to Foroyaa.22
On March 14, 2021, Gibril Ceesay, a 33-year-old Sanyang resident, was allegedly killed by a Senegalese fisher employed by Nessim.23 The incident sparked protests which quickly became violent. On March 15, 2021, hundreds of protesters set trucks and tires on fire, destroyed fishing boats and thousands of fishing nets, and set fire to the Nessim factory and Sanyang’s police station.24 Protestors “indiscriminately targeted recently arrived fishermen working with the factory and Senegalese fishermen” who were longtime Sanyang residents, ultimately destroying 5,616 fishing nets, 10 fishing boats, and 15 boat engines, according to Amnesty International.25 The protestors allegedly looted the Nessim plant and local homes and businesses, taking eight million Gambian dalasis, approximately $110,300, from the Nessim plant and local residents, and taking 257,000 Gambian dalasis worth of products from a mobile phone store, approximately $3,500.26 Protestors threw rocks at police who attempted to break up the crowd, and in turn, sprayed protestors with tear gas.27 Despite allegations and witness statements that Ceesay was stabbed by a Senegalese national employed at the Nessim factory, the plant’s General Manager denied that Nessim had any ties to the accused.28
Along with outrage over Ceesay’s death, the protests were also fueled by years’ worth of tension between the Nessim factory and Sanyang’s population, “who felt they were not benefiting from their resources being exploited by foreigners,” local activist Muhammed Jabang explained in an interview with The Republic.29
Following the protests, the Gambian Red Cross reported that over 250 people “of various nationalities, mainly Senegalese,” fled to a temporary shelter in Batokunku, about five kilometers, approximately three miles, away from Sanyang, according to The Point.30 Though most of the families returned after a few weeks, relationships between Senegalese immigrants and Sanyang natives remained strained. One Senegalese fisher living in Sanyang said, “We have been living here for more than 30 years and we never had any issues… the relationship with the community changed clearly, the attitudes have changed,” according to an interview with Amnesty International. During the protests and in their aftermath, the Sanyang police arrested over 50 people, some of whom alleged that they were arrested arbitrarily and that they were beaten and coerced into signing statements.31 The charges included “Arson, rioters demolishing buildings, unlawful assembly and conspiracy to commit felony,” according to The Point.32
Nessim did not respond to a request for comment.33