Breaking News: As President Jammeh’s bogus claims to rid Gambia of witches intensify, terror rages, over 200 villagers arrested, several tortured, dozens at Mile II Prisons & Kotu Station

By EBRIMA G. SANKAREH, Editor-In-Chief 

Yahya Jammeh, Gambian president

In what could be described as a trail of terror and gross human rights abuse, The Gambia Echo reports with overwhelming evidence, the mass arrest of villagers at Barra and Essau in The Gambia’s North Bank Division, 7 sea miles off Banjul, the capital. All of them are accused of clairvoyance and or witchcraft. At Barra, 33 were arrested. Several local dignitaries among them, Alhaji Tabora Manneh erstwhile District Chief of the Lower Nuimi Constituency, Alhaji Kenbugul Faye, the Barra village chief and the Wife of the Imam of Barra were all randomly arrested by armed paramilitary forces and headed to Banjul amid what our correspondent described as, great humiliation. 

At Essau, a kilometer from the coastal village of Barra, 50 were arrested among the villagers bringing the total in the North Bank to 83. One Lamin Ceesay was brutally beaten when he cautioned the paramilitary forces to let go his ailing mother, Mrs. Binta Drammeh. Ceesay, a village Headmaster was severely tortured amid drumming and dancing by Malian and Guinean occult scientists dressed in red traditional regalia who have been hired by Gambian President Yahya Jammeh to allegedly rid The Gambia of Witches. Ceesay is currently at Mile II Prisons reportedly bleeding profusely and the probability of him being sacked is more probable than otherwise given the regime’s history of vindictiveness. One Pa Kebba Njie and his Wife hypertension patients were also picked up but the old man probably the oldest in Essau, was let go. The wife has since been taken to Kotu Police Station. Bigie Sonko was also arrested.

Late last week, several youth in the villages of Tujereng and Brufut were brutally beaten by soldiers after they protested over their parents’ illegal arrests on frivolous allegations of witchcraft. Eyewitnesses say the brutality with which the young men were beaten is scary and may degenerate into a state of anarchy if not immediately halted. As we went to press, over 50 people are at Mile II Prisons in connection with these bizarre allegations while close to 200 are detained at various locations in the Kombos, majority of them at Kotu Station.

Several angry locals, who rang up The Echo this morning, have asked for the indulgence of the international community to arrest the madness lest The Gambia too slips into a state of lawlessness. We ask the world media to focus attention on The Gambia and crave the indulgence of human rights organizations like Amnesty International to investigate these worrisome developments.