Gambaga chief wants support for accused witches
The Chief of Gambaga in the East Mamprusi District in the Northern Region, Gambarana Yahaha Wuni, has appealed to the government and corporate entities in Ghana to help him with resources to cater for alleged witches currently seeking refuge in his territory.
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The support, he said, could be in cash or kind, and would come to augment the one he has been giving to the dozens of women accused of witchcraft and now lodging at the Gambaga Witches Camp.
The chief, who acts as the spiritual overseer of the victims, made the appeal when the Daily Graphic visited the camp from December 24 to 27 to observe the celebration of Christmas there.
He explained that before one settled in the clustered huts thatched with woven straws,he always took the person through some spiritual process to determine the truth or otherwise of the claim of witchcraft after which he cleansed the person and gave her a place to live in the camp.
The construction and refurbishment of those huts was mostly done by the chief, whose house is about five minutes walk from the witches camp.
He said he was sometimes overwhelmed by the needs of the women, hence the decision to appeal to the government and benevolent institutions to come to his aid.
"I came to meet these women here; the same applied to my predecessors and all we can do, which we always do, is to help them with food, shelter and health. But I am alone and they are many so I am sometimes not able to do it properly," the Gambarana said through an interpreter.
He, however, admitted that the Presbyterian Church's 'Go-Home Project', which is an initiative of the church to help reintegrate some of the women in their communities, and the district assembly sometimes helped in the construction of the mud huts thatched with woven straws.
Give me a tractor
The chief explained that the support he was requesting could be channelled into acquiring him a modern tractor, as well as expanding his farming business, which he uses to partly feed the women in the camp.
He was optimistic the acquisition of the tractor, together with other farming implements, would help increase the food yield from the farm, thereby leading to a rise in the quantity of foodstuffs and provisions that he occasionally distributed to the accused witches.
Don't dissolve camp
The Gambaga Witches Camp, which is one of six such facilities in the Northern Region, has been in existence for decades and serves as a place of refuge for hundreds of women accused of witchcraft and subsequently banished form their communities.
About 76 of such women are currently seeking refuge in the facility, together with their 32 children or grandchildren, majority of whom are below 20 years.
The Co-ordinator of the Presbyterian Church's Go-Home Project, Mr Samson Laar, said in an interview that although some of those children where accused alongside their female guardians, majority of them followed them or were born in the facility.
The District Chief Executive of the East Mamprusi District, Mr Adam Imoro, said dissolving the camp without tackling the cause of their camping there would be a lame decision, as "Nobody called them here; they run for their dear lives and so if you dissolve the camp, where will they live? Is it back to the communities where their people chased them away?."
The DCE also said, "these (the accused) are people who live in areas where the laws don't work and before you dissolve this camp, you must first convince me that you have successfully sensitised all the residents in those communities to believe in the law."