By Mafugi Ceesay
Massireh Bojang, 90, from Jambur village yesterday told the TRRC that she was forced to undress naked and was bathed by someone young enough to be her grandson.
The old woman narrated that she was arrested by witch doctors who found her selling at the market and took her to Kololi where she was forced to drink at least a litre of concoction, along with a group of 62 other people.
She explained that they were given this concoction at a place she believed to be a toilet and she could remember losing consciousness. She said she started suffering stomach pain which still persists.
“I was taken to the hospital but the doctor did not give me medicine, only an injection and the following morning we were released due to the death of someone back in Jambur.”
Another witness, Momodou Kaa Bojang, told the commission that the witch hunters arrested him at a shop and took him to a house belonging to the late Baba Jobe in Kololi. Mr. Bojang added that he initially resisted arrest but some villagers advised him to go with the soldiers.
“The hunters told me that they were sent by Yahya Jammeh for the natives to drink medicine.”
He said after drinking the concoction he was asked to bend down to be bathed with another concoction, saying “I only removed my shirt and bent down and a man poured a concoction from my waist down to my head. After finishing he asked me to pull back my dress and then asked me to join my colleagues seated on the floor,” he said.
He recalled constantly urinating from the moment he drank the concoction and felt dizzy.
He said since he drank the concoction to date, he constantly suffers waist pain among others.
“Since that incident my grandchildren nicknamed me Alhagie Kololi,” he said making light of the issue.
Another witness, Ansumana Sarjo of Makumbaya, narrated a similar ordeal.
