BANJUL, Gambia (AP) — Gambia has launched a truth, reconciliation and reparations commission to lay bare abuses committed under the 22-year rule of former leader Yahya Jammeh, with President Adama Barrow declaring the country's "dark days" are over.

The long-awaited commission is meant to help heal the deeply polarized West African nation after years of extrajudicial killings, torture and abuses in phony "HIV treatment" centers.

It also is expected to lay the groundwork for possible prosecution of Jammeh, who flew into exile in early 2017, and others.

The Gambian-born prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, says the commission will help the country write a new chapter and that in order to move forward "it must reckon with its past."

The commission launched Monday will investigate abuses committed between 1994 and early 2017.