At TRRC: Fatou Sowe tells her story of captivity, dehumanization and robbery

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By AWA SECKA-JAWARA

Fatou Sowe, a native of Dasilami village, Kombo Central, West Coast Region has said that she was capture with Sukai Jallow of Galoya on the same day and the same time, alleging inhuman treatment and robbed of their money.

Fatou who was testifying before the Truth, Reconciliation and reparation Commission (TRRC) at their regional hearing on the ‘witching hunting’ exercise at Jamburr village in Kombo South, West Coast Region explained that she was at her house when the ‘witch doctors’ came.

She said she was cooking when they came wearing red cloths while other wore green cloths armed with guns and some soldiers were carrying pick axes.

She explained that they asked her to go with them but when she asked them where they were taking her she was told that they were going to treat her.

“You have witches’ illness,” the witness quoted her abductor as saying.

She said she was then taken to the location where vehicles were parked and they boarded a bus and took them to Kololi.

She said when they arrived at Kololi they were taken to a big room and given food which she refused to eat and was also asked to handover whatever she is having.

She said she gave them D2,500 and after they took her inside and gave her the concoction to drink.

“When I drink the concoction I was unconscious until the following morning. One Green Boy came to me and asked me how many people I have eaten since last year and I told him that I never eat flesh of human being as I am not a witch,” she told the Commission.

She said they were asked to undress themselves naked and take bath in front of those young men and they rubbed the concoction all over their bodies and the money they collected from them were never returned back.

She recounted that when she returned home she was indoors for a month because of the embarrassing treatment she had gone through.

Fatou Sowe who was a gardener by profession, said after drinking the concoction she can no longer do anything.

“I am feeling pain all over my body,” accusing former President Yahya Jammeh for sending the people who came and gave them concoction to drink.