Photo by Issouf Sanogo. Video by Evelyne Aka
“My grandson got sick during the night and died in the morning. He was a year and a few months old and could barely walk,” said Amena Jaha.
Sitting under a mango tree in Kupo Cahanculo, a village in central Côte d’Ivoire, my grandmother was still shocked to see young lives cut down with such speed.
46-year-old grandmother Dorothe Kuame Ahou tearfully said she had lost her 3-year-old granddaughter, ‘my princess’, to a mysterious illness.
Their grandchildren are among the 21 people in the village who have died in the past two months. In this episode, ancient beliefs in magic collided with Western notions of law and medicine.
The nightmare began on December 2nd when six children suddenly started vomiting, had convulsions and died hours later.
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Twelve other children and three elderly people died in similar circumstances in late January, according to villagers, and dozens were taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Bouake.
There was a well-established belief in the village that powerful magic was at work. “Something mystical,” in the words of local chieftain Nanan Patrice Coffey.
As panic spread, people fled their villages, schools were closed, and the government sent senior politicians to the area to calm things down.
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The finger of blame was eventually pointed at a prominent figure in the village, François Coumet Quadio.
He was accused of bringing misery to the village by installing amulets, objects of magic, also known as sorcery.
In early February, an object composed of animal skins and vegetables was found buried in his land, with a gourd containing an unknown liquid on the ground above it. The fetish was set up to protect the land.
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Authorities, who have officially recorded the deaths of 18 people, found traces of Clostridium, a common but deadly bacterium, in both the gourd liquid and the corpses they tested.
Found in the soil and intestinal tracts of animals, including humans, this organism can cause botulism (a disease that causes vomiting and muscle paralysis) and other illnesses.
The discovery led to a speedy trial last Thursday, in which Quadio and a self-proclaimed witchcraft practitioner were each sentenced to five years in prison, accused of cheating and public disorder.
Jerome Yao Kuakou, 40, who provided the fetish, denied that his amulet harmed the infant.
“A fetish can’t hurt a two-year-old,” he said.
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Jaha also suspected that microorganisms were the cause.
“My grandson never came into contact with the object (the fetish). He could barely walk and never left the courtyard,” she said. Her house is a few hundred meters (yards) away from where the fetish was.
But investigators say Quadio ritually touched the gourd’s contaminated liquid, possibly spreading the germs through contact with other people.
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“What we need is that a child can come into contact with bacteria, put his hand in his mouth and get sick.
“He can contaminate toys, objects and other things for children,” said Joseph Benny Bi Vulot, director of the Ivory Coast National Institute of Public Health, which conducted the test.
No more fatalities, but the terror remains.
“Of course I’m afraid,” said Paul Quasi, who heads a local youth group, noting that there was a one-month gap between the two deadly episodes.
“I hope it never comes back,” Kofi said. “Our children are not yet buried.”
