Witness says she was 8 months pregnant when forced to drink concoction

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By EDRISSA JALLOW

Neneh Babou, a petty trader, and a survivor of the 2009 ‘witch hunting’ exercise in Essau, North Bank Region of The Gambia has on Thursday informed the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC) that she was forced to drink hallucinogenic concoction to drink when she was eight months pregnant.

She said it was on a Saturday just after lunch while she was relaxing, chatting with her husband and in-law that a man believed to be a marabout wearing red and holding a mirror came to their home accompanied by two armed soldiers.

She recalled that the man pointed the mirror at her stomach while she was eight months pregnant and told her that she is sick, that she has to go with them for treatment even though she told them that she was quite well and would not go with them.

The witness said she refused to join them but her husband told her to join them, that it was a government issue and might not know what will happen.

She said her husband convinced her to follow them together with her in-law whom they also claimed to be sick, that they decided to proceed with them until where the vehicles were parked.

Neneh said where the vehicles were parked around the Arabic school just behind the Barra police station they met six Green Boys, one member of the Green Girls, marabouts and soldiers armed with rifles surrounding a vehicle.

“I felt humiliated when I was forced to get into the vehicle because I was not well dressed. And am sure I was the youngest among them. At that moment I was 27 years old. I met some natives of Barra namely, Yama Faye, Alagie Kenbugul Faye, Pa Ali Marr, Pa Jahateh and my in-law, Rohey Faye. We were all in the same white vehicle,” she recollected.

She said her husband later brought better clothes for her through the window of the car to change her dress through the window of the car.

She narrated that they sat there for almost two hours, from 3:00pm to 5:00pm then proceeded to Kombo in the evening.

Neneh Babou added that they crossed from Barra via ferry around dusk prayer and proceeded straight to Baba Jobe’s compound in Kololi where they were forced to drink the concoction with her in-law.

Describing the coercive nature in which they drink the concoction at Kololi, the witness said they met armed soldiers at the gate on their arrival and were led to a special room like a bathroom, that she saw people coming out vomiting, looking drunk and urinating on themselves.

She said when she entered she found a man wearing green and a soldier standing at the door with his riffle, that they were invited one by one to drink the concoction.

She further explained how she was given a cup full of water and mixed with a yellowish powder from the hallucinogenic plant locally called “kubejaro” which they said is medicine for her stomach.

She said she drank a little and could not complete then a soldier shouted at her and said she must complete or face trouble.

She said at that moment, she felt so much pain that she preferred dying than complete drinking the concoction, that she suddenly heard her in-law telling the soldier: “Why can’t you have sympathy for a pregnant woman who is suffering. Don’t you see the condition she is in and you are adding much pain to her? You are such a wicked person. And the soldier told my in-law to get out.”

Neneh alleged that when the officer responded to her in-law she suddenly placed the cup and went outside the room and vomited three times.

She said her in-law had psychological problem due to drinking the hallucinogenic concoction.

She recounted that after she was released from Baba Jobe’s compound in Kololi she felt dizzy every day and fell sick which resulted in her frequent evacuation to the hospital until the day she delivered at Barra hospital in North Bank Region.

She also stated that when she delivered at the hospital the baby was not breast fed for three days because her body was unhealthy and her breast milk was not good enough to be breast feeding her baby.

According to her, the child died after three months and could not have any other child since then, explaining that she underwent to miscarriages.

In her final remarks, she said: “I will never forgive Yahya Jammeh in this world and hereafter, because he is behind the loss of my child who might be benefitting me today. I was at my matrimonial house and he was at the state house enjoying. He never knew me and I never knew him but why should he send people to catch me. He did not know the condition in which I was. Why should he trouble me,” she decried.