By Lamin Njie
A 46-year-old woman was yanked from her house in Macumbaya and put in a bus where she waited for hours before being taken to Kololi and stripped.
Therese Gomez ran into trouble when ritualists stormed her town in 2009 as part of a Yahya Jammeh-sanctioned nationwide witch-hunt.
Therese was with her daughter who had newly given birth when the weirdly dressed witch doctors arrived and asked her to come with them, without telling her why she was being arrested. She was held by her hand and placed in a bus.
Therese told the TRRC today she had no idea a campaign aimed at identifying witches was going on.
Therese said: “He was dressed in red costume which had mirror all over. He held me by my hand and asked me to come with him. I was taken to a bus which I was asked to board.”
Macumbaya is a village in Kombo North and it is one of the many communities that Jammeh-sponsored witch doctors raided in 2009. The witch doctors came to the village with a group of young boys and girls who were singing and dancing as the hunt for witches unravelled – and Therese was one of dozens who luck had given its back to.
“I found other people who were also asked to board the bus.
“We were later taken to Kololi I believe. They asked us to form a queue and each was given [a concoction] to drink. They also stripped and bathed us,” Therese said.
