Karamo Bojang, left, with his wife, is an imam in Jambur, where about 60 villagers were forced to drink a foul liquid.

By ADAM NOSSITER


JAMBUR, Gambia - This West African nation’s 1.7 million citizens have grown familiar with the unpredictable exploits of its absolute ruler, who insists on being called His Excellency President Professor Dr.Al- Haji Yahya Jammeh: his herbs-and-banana cure for AIDS, his threat to behead gays, and his portrait posted along roadsides.

Not to mention the documented disappearances, torture and imprisonment of journalists and political opponents.

But then came a campaign so strange that the citizens are still reeling and sickened from it, literally.

The president, it seems, had become concerned about witches in this country of mango trees and Atlantic coastline frequented by European tourists mostly unaware of the activities at nearby Mile 2 State Central Prison, where many opponents of the regime are taken.

To the accompaniment of drums, and directed by men in red tunics , dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Gambians were taken from their villages and driven by bus to secret locations. There they were forced to drink a foul-smelling concoction that made them hallucinate, gave them severe stomach pains and in some cases killed them, according to villagers and Amnesty International.

The objective was to root out witches, evil sorcerers who were harming the country, the villagers were told. Terrified, dozens of other people fled into the bush or across the border into Senegal , villagers said. Amnesty estimates that at least six people died after being forced to drink the potion, whose composition is unknown.

Even in the often brutal context of his 15- year dictatorship, these roundups stand out, the president’s few open critics in Gambia say. They occurred from late January through March, according to people here. But even in recent weeks, the same witch doctors in red, accompanied by others identified as government agents, have circulated in the poor countryside demanding that villagers make animal sacrifices to root out sorcery.

Dembo Jariatou Bojang said he was driven by bus, along with about 60 others, to a place they did not recognize, where they were made to drink and bathe in the foul liquid.

“My head is still paining sometimes,’’ said Jariatou Bojang, a village official in Jambur, a dusty town 24 kilometers from the capital, Banjul.