U.S. denies visas to Gambia teens competing in global robotics contest

DAKAR, SENEGAL — The United States has denied visas to five teenage students from Gambia competing in a prestigious international robotics contest in Washington, the team’s leader said Tuesday.

The teens found the rejection “very disheartening,” said Mucktarr M.Y. Darboe, who is also a director in the largely Muslim West African nation’s ministry of higher education.

Darboe said the students were not given a reason for the visa denials in April, and he called the decision “disappointing and unfair.”

The Gambia team is not alone. An all-female team from Afghanistan also was denied visas.

The U.S. Embassy in Banjul could not immediately be reached for comment.

Tiny Gambia has been through dramatic change in recent months, ousting via elections a longtime dictator, Yahya Jammeh, whose administration was accused of human rights abuses. The new administration, inaugurated in January, has promised widespread democratic reforms.

Gambia’s government has put forth the money for another round of U.S. visa applications for the robotics team members, and the teens are being interviewed again today, Darboe said. The students’ creation was shipped Tuesday to the competition.

“We will go for an interview and hope for the best,” he said.

Each student had to pay a fee of more than $160 for the visas and travel for the interviews.

For months, the team has worked on a machine that sorts balls as part of an effort to simulate solutions for separating contaminates from water.

FIRST Global holds the annual robotics competition to encourage learning in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM, around the world. It invites one team from each country in an effort to build bridges, organizers said. This year’s competition takes place from July 16-18.

Gambia team member Fatoumata Ceesay, 17, said she hopes their second interview will get her and her teammates to the U.S., but she was not optimistic.

“It’s very disappointing knowing that we are the only two countries that aren’t going to take part in the competition,” she said. “It would be an experience to see and discover other robots and ask questions and exchange ideas with others. It’s more than 160 countries, so we’d have the chance to mingle.”

The aspiring engineering student said she was grateful for the opportunity to work with the team and learn about building robots.