Official finding Witchcraft- and sorcery-accusation violence State or organised anti-witchcraft campaign Kanilai, The Gambia · 2009

Gambia state 'witch-hunt': TRRC finds Jammeh-ordered ritual-cleansing campaign killed dozens

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Record class

Institutional event

Evidence status

Official finding

Authority role

head of state who ordered the campaign, state-sponsored traditional healers

Organization

Government of The Gambia (Jammeh administration), Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC)

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

A claimed occult/witchcraft causation belief triggered a state-organized ritual-cleansing campaign in which invited traditional healers administered a coercive ritual substance that killed detainees.

Curse or witchcraft threat
Exorcism or deliverance

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2021-12-24 · official investigation and finding

Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, The Gambia. The TRRC's final report documented the 2009 state-sponsored witch-hunt campaign in which villagers were detained and forced to drink a concoction administered by 'witch doctors'; Human Rights Watch reported that of those detained, 41 died in custody or shortly thereafter. The Commission recommended prosecution of those most responsible; no criminal conviction has followed.

Documented coercion mechanisms

abduction and detention
forced ingestion of a ritual concoction

Cited record

Sources

official truth commission report archive official finding Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission of The Gambia, Final Report, Volume 11: 2009 Witch-Hunt Exercise (25 Nov. 2021). [archived copy]: The official TRRC final report (Volume 11) documents the 2009 state witch-hunt campaign ordered under President Jammeh, including the forced ingestion of a concoction and resulting deaths.
contemporaneous human rights reporting finding summary 'Gambia: Commission Uncovered Ex-President's Alleged Crimes', Human Rights Watch, 24 May 2021.: Human Rights Watch summarizes the witch-hunt campaign and reports that of those detained, 41 died in custody or shortly thereafter.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://www.moj.gm/download-file/12945cad-6447-11ec-8f4f-025103a708b7 Corpus classification: official-truth-commission-report-archive; evidentiary role: official-finding. SHA-256 527ba9db55e0b611aa821efb499ad429ab9f2ed3756a885e4156b4cf4bb934af
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/05/24/gambia-commission-uncovered-ex-presidents-alleged-crimes Corpus classification: contemporaneous-human-rights-reporting; evidentiary role: finding-summary. SHA-256 8a4a7976fa49f361ff5e499e2a6f8c0b2ccb8bda4263e5d16ad3abd7fe57f15a
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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