5 Remanded for Butchering Alleged Witch In Sumpini

Victim Meri Ibrahim

The Bole Magistrate Court presided over by Andrew Prince Cudjoe, has remanded five persons who were arrested in connection with the attack on Madam Meri Ibrahim, a 60 year old woman at Sumpini near Busunu in the Savannah region.

The accused persons are Atta Alhassan , 57 , Haruna Yagbon, 56 , Iddrisu Sayibu,35 , Salifu Issahaku 45, Zakaria Abdul Karim,30.

The accused persons have been charged with Conspiracy to cause harm and causing harm.

The are expected to reappear in court on September 19.

In less than two months, another elderly woman has been brutally attacked by a mob on claims of witchcraft.

The incident reportedly occurred at a village called Sumpini, near Busunu in the West Gonja Municipality of the Savannah Region.

It happened around the area where 90-year-old woman Akua Denteh was killed by a mob at Kafaba in the East Gonja Municipality of the same region, sparking national outrage.

This time around, Meri Ibrahim, 60, was lucky to escape death but not until she had been savagely attacked with machetes and other offensive weapons by the mob in Sumpini.

She sustained severe cutlass wounds on Saturday night and is in critical condition at the Damongo Hospital receiving treatment.

According to the mob, the victim had wanted to use witchcraft to ‘kill’ a young man in the town and had to be made to ‘suffer’ for it to serve as deterrent to other would-be ‘witches’.

Meri Ibrahim, in a video, narrated that she and two other women in the Sumpini community were accused of witchcraft but the two other women were able to flee from the community to avoid any attacks.

She revealed that she was at home when some residents came and accused her of being a witch, but she denied.

Meri said that did not stop the residents from attacking her with machetes and other offensive objects and her house ransacked and belongings destroyed.

In the case of Akua Denteh, seven people made up of the suspected ringleader, Sherina Mohamed alias Hajia Filipina, her accomplice Latifa Bumaye and five other men who participated in the lynching are currently standing trial at the Bole District Magistrate Court.

FROM Eric Kombat, Tamale

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