Chioma Umeha
Three victims of a fake AIDS cure created by
Gambia’s ex-president sued for damages on Thursday in the first case against
Yahya Jammeh to reach national courts since the former leader fled into exile.
The three filed a lawsuit at the High Court in the
capital of Banjul on Thursday, said US-based charity AIDS-Free World, which
helped them gather evidence.
Jammeh, whose 22-year rule over the tiny West
African country was marked by accusations of human rights abuses, fled to
Equatorial Guinea last year after losing an election.
Ousman Sowe, Lamin Ceesay and Fatou Jatta were
among the first Gambians who joined his HIV/AIDS treatment programme in 2007,
where they were forced to give up anti-retroviral drugs and drink home-made
potions that made them vomit.
Their health worsened, while others in the
programme died.
“I believe it is my responsibility to hold Jammeh
to account,” said Sowe, a former university lecturer in his 60s.
“I knew that one day the real story would be
told.”
People were afraid to criticise the president when
he was in power, the victims said, so doctors and patients publicly declared
that his medicines were working.
The programme hampered real HIV/AIDS work in
Gambia, which trails behind other African countries in treatment rates, according
to the UN agency UNAIDS.
It also worsened stigma against people with HIV
and stripped them of dignity, said survivors. Sometimes Jammeh would rub
ointment on their bodies in sessions that were broadcast on television, they
told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Afterwards, they lost their jobs and struggled to
rent houses since their faces were recognisable, they said.
“Jammeh must pay for what he has done to us,” said
Ceesay.
The victims are seeking financial damages for harm
suffered and a declaration that their human rights were violated, said Saramba
Kandeh, a legal associate at AIDS-Free World.
Jammeh will be tried in absentia and can be
represented if he wants, she said.
“We want to send a clear message that people
living with HIV are people like us,” Kandeh told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.
The Gambia-based Institute for Human Rights and
Development in Africa and a Gambian attorney are also working on the case.
