In The Gambia, according to local media, over 9,000 Gambians went through Yahya Jammeh’s so-called 'treatment program', with a majority of HIV patients. “The testimony of survivors makes obvious that significant numbers of deaths resulted from Jammeh's HIV cure”, notes the international advocacy organization AIDS-Free World.
"Shocked and outraged by the actions of the former dictator of The Gambia…AIDS-Free World is determined to defend people living with HIV who, like those who suffered at Jammeh's hands, have experienced a gross violation of their rights”, Sarah Bosha, Legal Research and Policy Associate at AIDS-Free World, declares to Justice Info.
"We have been moved by the strength and courage of Jammeh's victims and we are amplifying the voices of the survivors to ensure that Jammeh's actions against people living with HIV and AIDS are recognized as an integral part of the human rights violations committed by the former president”, Sarah Bosha underlines.
"We continue to urge victims of Jammeh's mistreatment to come forward and speak about the horrors they suffered and witnessed. We are determined to marshal all the facts necessary to ensure that justice is served against Jammeh", AIDS-Free World’s Sarah added.
On the ground, in The Gambia, one the Jammeh’s mistreatment victims supported by AIDS-Free World is Fatou Jatta. HIV and gender activist, Fatou was obliged by Jammeh to go through his so-called cure program. She spent about 9 months drinking Jammeh’s “miraculous” black and oily herbal products she did not know what they were made of; and also, like other patients, they were massaged by the president himself and his assistants. During all these nine months, they were under military monitoring and could not receive visitors. In this interview, Fatou Jatta gives her part of testimony of one of the most horrible practices of the formal regime of The Gambia. And she asks for justice.
