Gambia's new president, still in Senegal, names female VP

BANJUL (AP):

Gambia's new vice-president will be a female leader of the opposition coalition that helped bring new President Adama Barrow

to power, a presidential spokesman announced yesterday as regional troops continued security sweeps to prepare for Barrow's return to the country he now rules.

The appointment of Aja Fatoumata Tambajang as vice-president was announced at a press conference by coalition spokesman Halifa Sallah. He said the rest of Barrow's cabinet would be revealed today.

Barrow remained in Senegal, where he travelled more than a week ago when it was uncertain whether ex-President Yahya Jammeh would acknowledge defeat in the December election and step down.

After days of frantic mediation, and as a regional intervention force deployed to apply pressure, Jammeh finally agreed to leave, flying out late Saturday night. Mediators said his destination was Equatorial Guinea, though that notoriously secretive country has yet to confirm Jammeh's arrival.

Equatorial Guinea's opposition has denounced the government's decision to welcome Jammeh.

President Teodoro Obiang will be held responsible "for what might occur" as a result of Jammeh's presence on the country's soil, according to a statement e-mailed yesterday by Andres Esono Ondo, secretary general of the opposition Convergence for Social Democracy.