September 28 trial: Yayé Fatou Barry recounts the hell she experienced on the day of the massacre and the days after

A new victim of the September 28 stadium massacre was called to the bar this Monday, March 27, 2023. This is Lady Yayé Fatou Barry who gave her statement to the criminal court of Dixinn relocated to the Court of Appeal of Conakry. She is the fourth victim, among those who wanted to appear with her face uncovered, to come and explain her misadventure on this fateful date of September 28, 2009. Claiming to be the victim of assault and battery, the lady returned to what happened to her on the day of the massacre and the difficulties in leaving the country in order to seek treatment abroad, found Guineematin.com on the spot through one of its reporters.

Dame Yayé Fatou Barry recounted what she suffered at the stadium before being pulled from the claws of the military by an unknown person. She did not hide her evacuation for treatment the day following this tragedy.

Guineematin.com offers you below his entire testimony at the bar:

Yayé Fatou Barry, victim of the September 28, 2009 massacre

“On the day of the massacre, I left my house at 6 a.m. My friends came to pick me up. I asked to go out with my car together with them. They said okay, we’ll go in one car. I said, let’s start at Lounceny Fall (president of the FUDEC party, member of the Forces Vives at the time, editor’s note) to go to lunch first. We left, we had lunch with Lounceny Falls. He made omelettes for us and we had a good lunch. We went out in a group, there were a lot of us, men and women. We had agreed that once at the stadium, we would take shelter with Kaba. We went to stay with Kaba. We stayed until the time they told us to go to the side of the road opposite Gamal University. We gathered there. We were many. The rank might go up to Donka. We stayed in that, there is a woman who said to me, Madam come we will hold the flag together, I cannot hold it alone. When I left, I asked her for her address, she told me she was in Matoto. We stayed in that, Tiégboro arrived with his group. He said, what are you doing here? We replied that we came to party. He said no, you won’t come back. In response, we said that we will return to the stadium. And when we were leaving in line, the gate of the stadium was closed. Because we passed by the front of the stadium. Where we were, opposite the university, we did 2 hours because it was a question of waiting for the other leaders to move. The leaders who were among us said that there is Jean Marie Doré who must meet with Islamic religious leaders and wait for Jean Marie.

We waited, Jean Marie didn’t come and we moved. There were leaders among us. Me, I was arrested with the woman, we held the flag there were the leaders behind. We came up to the level of the stadium. The door was open. We returned to the stadium everyone was in the mood. Others sang and others prayed on the lawn. We left until we got on the platform, the leaders followed us. They started their speech. We were always stopped. We stayed in that. We heard screams. We heard gunshots. Everyone got up, but we were in the mood. Me, where I was in the stands, next to the leaders, something came through my glasses here and went to the front and hurt me. Until now, this stuff is in my head, and it hurts me. I was the victim of beatings.

Coming down from the premises, I met Jean Marie Doré on the stairs, they were torturing him. They took off his tie and tied it with this. There was blood in his mouth. Those who beat him, I mightn’t recognize them because I already had my glasses broken, the blood ran down my face, I mightn’t see well. I met with others who beat me up, they tore my clothes. I wanted to climb the walls. I saw that if I jump over there, I either die or break. I accepted the beatings to the ground. When I got to land, I saw that there was shooting, there were red berets and green berets. The agents of the CMIS (Mobile Intervention and Security Company) were there. I mightn’t recognize anyone because I don’t know the military. On the ground, I started to wander on the slabs. I met a kid in my neighborhood, he’s a mechanic. He said to me, what did you come here to look for? I said it’s not me, it’s God. We came here to dance, that’s what happened to us. He says to me, aunty come on, I can’t leave you here. He tells me, but you have all your clothes torn. He took off his shirt and gave it to me. But his dress was small for me because I’m bigger than him. I made the shirt rise like a skirt. Wherever he sent me to make me climb the walls, he mightn’t.

We headed for the door. We came, we found the wires cut, they said there’s power on the doors, don’t touch them. Under the beatings there, I had lost my phone. I said, what am I going to call my husband, I’m in pain, I don’t have a phone. The kid took me for a walk to get me out of the yard, but he mightn’t. All the while we were running. As I ran, I bumped into the corpses, I fell and I got up. If you ask me, the number of bodies that were there that day was over 150.

In that, I left the stadium in the followingnoon because I wasn’t looking at the time. Before I left the stadium, I met a young man next to the basketball hall. One was pulling me left and the other was pulling me right. He wanted me to go into the basketball hall. I heard the screams. I can say that all the women have been raped in this room. The children fought until they pushed open the door to get Jean Marie Doré out. That’s when I was taken out. Before getting out, I met with Sorel, the former Governor, he had been beaten, blood was flowing from his ears. I don’t know him, he doesn’t know me. He said to me, Madam, let me give you my shirt so that you don’t go out naked. The kid says no, I’m taking him there. The little one struggled. He pulled me towards Dixinn Foula, but before getting there, I had suffered a lot of beatings.

When we arrived, the young man said to me, how are we going to embark now when there are no vehicles? I said, send me somewhere because I had bare feet, I had been beaten, there was something in my head, on my buttocks, I was hurt. So he sent me to Mr. Kaba. Gandhi Tounkara, rest his soul, saw me. He says Madame Diallo is seriously injured. He says can I send you to hospital? I said you can’t send me to the hospital send me home. We stayed there until 5 p.m. We thought the road was clear now. I was with Gandhi, with Madame Laouratou Bah in the car. We went to Belle Vue. There, too, stones were being thrown, there, too, the windscreen was broken. We were shooting everywhere. But, he fought until I got home. When I got home, I found the whole family crying. The children were crying, thinking that I was already dead. At home, my husband asked me, do you know who beat you, I said no. He says if I knew those who beat you, I was not going to forgive that. He heated the water and massaged my body. In the evening, the head was swollen from the beatings. The next day, Lounceny Fall came to tell me to go to the hospital. He told Mr. Gandhi to send me to the hospital and report to him.

We came to Donka. What I saw there, I said to Mr. Gandhi, I can’t stay here. I said, it was the red berets who were arrested there with the Minister of Health (Colonel Abdoulaye Chérif Diaby, accused in this case, editor’s note). I said I’m not going home. Gandhi called Fall to say that Madame Diallo didn’t accept, but she’s right too. Fall says to send me to the infirmary of the French Embassy in his name. After the X-ray, the diagnosis revealed that there is something in my head. He treated the wounds. He says every morning Gandhi has to take me to the hospital. Afterwards, we returned home. I stayed at home. On the second day, the soldiers came to my house. I don’t know if it’s because they saw Fall coming home or if they came for something else, I didn’t know. In front of the court there, they started shooting. There are the traces so far on our yard there. Directly, I called Mr. Gandhi to give him the report. Because Fall was not quiet, he had a fractured hand.

We stayed in that, I got calls from the city telling me to leave my house. Fall even told me to leave. My husband made me leave the house. He sent me somewhere in Demoudoula. I stayed for two weeks. During the two weeks, Gandhi would pick me up to send me to the hospital to take me home. I left home so other people wouldn’t die because of me. Only once they called me in an agency in town, they asked me, it’s you Mrs. Fatou Yayé Barry, I said yes. They said you have to come to the agency, they sent a ticket for you. I don’t know if it was Fall who bought the ticket or if it was the European Union. I left to take the ticket, they scheduled me for the trip. I came to the airport, my head was bandaged. At the airport, I saw Tiégboro and Moussa Keïta. I said, people there came to arrest me. My husband insisted, saying they’re not going to do anything. But, I didn’t listen. I said there are enough red berets and I mightn’t risk going there. I moved a taxi leaving my husband and Gandhi there.

In the morning I went to the travel agency, I said that I was no longer going to travel because there was Tiégboro and Moussa Keïta at the airport. The agency told me to go, we are going to extend your ticket because what is in your head, we have to operate. The next day, I came to the airport, I embarked and I left for Dakar.

Everybody who’s humiliated the women here, I swear God’s not gonna leave them like that. It was because of my illness that my mom had a fit and she died. It was my operation and my evacuation that shortened my mother’s life…

Interview by Mohamed Guéasso DORÉ for Guineematin.com