Up to 1,000 detained in Gambia witch hunt...

Witch doctors and security forces in Gambia have detained up to 1,000 people on suspicion of being witches, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. Police in the African country dismissed the reports as lies.

Victims have been held in secret detention camps for up to five days and forced to drink hallucinogenic substances which have killed at least two people through kidney failure, the London-based human rights organisation said in a statement.

"At 5 a.m. the paramilitary police armed with guns and shovels surrounded our village and threatened the villagers that anyone who tries to escape will be buried six feet under," it quoted an unidentified eyewitness as saying of a recent raid. More...

See also:

1. Africa: zero tolerance for Uganda's child sacrifices...
2. South Africa: "witchcraft" family burnt to death...
3. The "child witches" of Nigeria... WTF! This is crazy...
4. Stopping the albino massacre in Tanzania...
5. Uganda: Lord's Resistance Army accused of massacre in church...