‘Wishes for witches’: Inmates of Gambaga camp seek gov’t support for return, integration

Just as we all had our wishes for the recent festive season, so did the ‘witches’ of Ghana’s infamous Gambaga Camp: to be allowed back home, reuniting with family and friends, and being reintegrated into the society they were exiled from long ago.

Unfortunately, this may only remain a wish for many of these women who feel trapped at the camp. Some have lived there for over two decades and are forever ostracized from the communities they once loved. Managers of the facility are trying to make their dreams come true, but the task is rendered difficult — if not impossible — by community members who remain largely adamant and unwelcoming.

Sampson Laar, coordinator of the Presby Go Home Project — a Presbyterian NGO set up to facilitate such reintegration — says over 80 per cent of the women do want to go home, but most communities are just not safe enough.

“This place is now like a safe haven for them,” Laar explains, the irony of it not lost on the writer. “Sometimes you talk to them and ask what they want; you can give them the whole world, but they only want to go back home.

“But then they compare their lives here to what they could face back home and, ultimately, decide to stay.”

FOUNDATIONS OF THE CAMP

In a community in Ghana’s northern parts, somewhere before or during the early 1900’s, a woman accused of being a witch was attacked by a mob; but for a kind man’s intervention, that would have led to certain death. The man, a Muslim cleric called Imam Baba, was returning to Gambaga from Nalerigu when he chanced on some people pelting the poor woman with stones and hitting her with other objects. Just when they were leading her to a mountain in the area where alleged witches were traditionally sent to be crucified, this woman — like the Biblical Mary Magdalene — met a saviour who turned her story around.

Imam Baba rescued her from the hands of the furious community members and provided refuge in his home. As days went by, he was overwhelmed by the sheer number of women seeking safety with him. With Islam’s holy book, the Qur’an, he would attempt to exorcise and cleanse them, just in case they were indeed possessed of witchcraft. As the numbers kept increasing, however, he couldn’t keep up and sought help. To the Gambarana (chief of Gambaga) Imam Baba handed the women; the chief, in turn, gave them a place and consulted his gods on how to purify the witches and nullify their powers. Since then, many more have flocked to the camp created by the Gambarana for the afflicted individuals’ safe-keeping.