The young Gambian shot dead by the Police last Saturday at the Gran Canaria airport after attacking an officer with a knife was Abdoulie Bah, a 19-year-old boy who arrived to the islands by boat in 2019, integrated, hardworking, athletic... but who weeks ago had begun to show symptoms of mental imbalance.
The episode was recorded by the airport's security cameras, whose images show a scene that has generated bewilderment: that of a man carrying something in his hand (a knife, according to the court in charge of the case), surrounded by five police officers whom he confronts, until he attacks one of them and his colleagues subdue him with five shots.
Sources close to the case have explained to EFE that Bah had just arrived at the airport determined to do something without much logic: take a flight to Gambia that day, when he had a ticket for the 22nd.
Was something happening to the young man? In his police record there is only one antecedent and very recent: the previous Wednesday, he had been seen walking along the median of the highway that connects Tafira with Las Palmas de Gran Canaria near Barranco Seco by several drivers, who called emergency services due to the risk of causing a serious accident or being run over, details a spokesman for the Superior Headquarters of the Canary Islands Police.
His reaction was also strange: he confronted the 091 patrol that came to the scene to get him off the highway and got into a shoving match with the officers, to the point that he was arrested for resistance and assault on authority. He appeared before the judge and was released.
Abdoulie Bah was a boy formerly under the guardianship of the Government of the Canary Islands, who had left the minor reception network when he turned 18, on May 5, 2024, when he found himself on the street and in need of finding a place to live and a job.
He seemed to have achieved it with the help of another older Colombian boy who had become his mentor and with the support of the National Federation of Immigrants and Refugees 'Países', in whose football tournaments he participated assiduously. In fact, until last season, he had a youth card with a club from Gran Canaria, Lomo Blanco SJA, and they say he was the best on the team.
Like all young men who turn 18, he suffered the shock of being left without a network after five years under the tutelage of a public administration and it was difficult for him to accept it, say people close to him.
In reality, he had not completely detached himself from that world: until shortly before his death, he worked as an educator in a center for migrant minors in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where he offered his experience as someone who had gone through the same thing and his knowledge of Mandinka, Wolof, Pulaar, Bambara, English and Spanish.
In addition, he had already graduated from ESO at the Santa Brígida Institute, had studied basic vocational training as an administrative assistant, had work experience as a car mechanic, bricklayer and kitchen assistant in his country and had trained as an agricultural laborer in the Canary Islands with the COAG farmers' coordinator.
His acquaintances in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria cannot explain his behavior with the Police, much less that he is dead. His closest friends do know that for a few weeks he had shown signs of having mental problems, that last week he was precisely immersed in an outbreak and that an NGO wanted to take him to a doctor.
"He was a very good boy, very calm, shy, but a few weeks ago he changed. Something happened in his head, he talked to himself, he said they wanted to eat him," explains one of his best friends, Abdolualha Camara.
Before the episode on the highway, Camara recalls, his roommate and himself had to call the Police because he had locked himself in the house and did not want to open to anyone or leave. However, the officers could not do anything: he was in his home.
The Investigating Court number 3 of Telde has already opened an investigation into what happened, which should assess whether the police's reaction was proportional to the danger that Bah represented to his own integrity and to that of the citizens who at that time were at the bus stop where everything happened.
The Association of Gambians in the Canary Islands has gone to the Court this Monday on behalf of the Embassy of their country in Spain to inquire about the case and to communicate that Abdoulie Bah's brother, who lives in Italy, is traveling to the islands to take charge, Babucarr Sayang, the president of that group of emigrants, told Efe.
The secretary of the Federation of African Associations in the Canary Islands, the sociologist Teodoro Bodyale, also cannot explain what happened, who trusts that the investigation will clarify whether Bah's death was inevitable and whether they could have subdued him in another way or not.
Bodyale specifies that he does not prejudge whether the agents acted well or badly, something that corresponds to the judge, he only underlines two things: that it is difficult for him to assume that a 19-year-old boy receives five shots, one of them in the neck, and that it had not been four days since Unicef had held in the city some conferences dedicated precisely to calling attention to the mental problems of minors who arrive by boat and asking for more psychological assistance resources.
Isabel Alfaro, the president of "Países", the National Federation of Immigrant Associations that had helped Abdoulie Bah on several occasions, is of the same opinion. In her case, they demand an in-depth investigation into the police action and are considering appearing.
