In March 2009 Amnesty International reported that up to 1,000 Gambians had been abducted by government-sponsored "witch doctors" on charges of witchcraft, and taken to government detention centres where they were forced to drink dirty water with poisonous herbs,this left several captives with sequelae. On 21 May 2009, "The New York Times" reported that the alleged witch-hunting campaign had been sparked by the President Yahya Jammeh, who believed that the death of his aunt earlier that year could be attributed to witchcraft. These crimes were influenced by João Bernardo Vieira's brutally murder in March 2009, the president Jammeh is horrorized.