Coercive consumption of hallucinogenic concoction: Daughter narrates dead mother’s past agony

790

By PA ABLIE CORR

Fatou Fatty, a daughter one of the victims of former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh’s witch hunting exercise has explained in detail the anguish of her late mother until her demise.

Fatou appeared before the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) during their community hearings about the inhuman treatment meted out to innocent people in 2009 when hallucinogenic concoction was given to many in the name of hunting for witches and wizards in the country.

The purported witch hunters were said to have come from Guinea Conakry.

The witness told the commission that her mother, Nyima Koteh alias Bouy Koteh who died around the age 80 like many others were abducted and given concoction by the self-claimed witch hunters.

She further explained that one of her mother’s friends, Adama Bojang came to her (mother) and informed her about an ongoing meeting that both of them should go together.

She said her mother accepted to join her friend because they were told that visitors came to have a meeting with the community not knowing the supposed visitors were the so-called witch hunters.

She told the TRRC that they found people drumming and dancing at the village bantaba (square).

“I went to the meeting ground but I found them drumming, dancing and my arrival coincided with my mother boarding a vehicle,” she said.

She said she saw men in military uniform armed with guns and some dressed in all red that went round in the community and abduct people

She said those who resist abduction were forced to comply.

She said: “The people that were abducted were the ones dancing and they were told that they were going to cure them.”

She said these people were made to dance against their will, adding that the abducted people were all elderly.

Fatou Fatty said some of them were forced to come to the village square while others came voluntarily.

“They told us they were witch hunters,” she said, adding the numerous people she saw in the bus were all from Jambur village.”

She said before her mother was abducted and given the concoction, she was healthy and goes to the garden by herself but after drinking the concoction, she began having health complication.

“When she returned, I saw wounds on her mouth with a broken tooth. She came home dizzy. Until her demise she was never the same. Even if she wanted to go the bathroom she would fall,” she said.

She said her late mother became weak and object frequently fell from her hands as she could not hold them firm.

“Sometimes the things she used to say are incomprehensible because she could no longer speak clearly,” she said.

She said her Nyima was not able to communicate to any of her children because of her situation then.

She said not more than three days after she was forced to drink the concoction, her mother was hospitalized at the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital in Banjul for a month.

“She did not improve until she died. She did not even open her eyes until she died,” she said.