Ayder Kanyomushana, 81, who feels ostracized since she was accused of witchcraft by neighbors, sits at her home in Nyakitabire, a rural village in western Uganda, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

NYAKITABIRE, Uganda (AP) — A drought had dragged on for months. Fields of onions, potatoes and beans went dry. Hungry and desperate, the villagers sought someone to blame.

Their target? A gray-haired, slightly stooped 81-year-old woman.

The woman, Ayder Kanyomushana, said she was beaten by neighbors who believed she was a witch and responsible for the drought. The pain of the attack, they thought, would cause her to cry and her tears, in turn, would spark the rain to return.

“They almost killed me,” Kanyomushana says. “It was really terrible.”

In parts of Africa, accusations of witchcraft lead to beatings, banishment and even death, with the victims overwhelmingly older people. As the continent’s population of older people surges, some fear the problem will too.

Advocates say they see a growing number of cases where the accused is a person with dementia – a condition not widely understood on the continent. Whatever the reason a person may be targeted, though, the results can be devastating.

It’s been three years since Kanyomushana first had fingers pointed at her, but the accusations have continued to bubble up. It didn’t help that after she was beaten, the drought broke and the rain fell, cementing what some already believed true. A few months ago, a group of villagers again targeted her, uprooting and destroying her garden.

“See what we’ll do to you,” she says one boy threatened.

Reach One Touch One Ministries intervened to get Kanyomushana out of her home while they confronted villagers. They warned they would take those involved to court and that they could face prison time.

Kanyomushana isn’t sure how it all started. She wonders if it might have been a local woman she says has long hated her, jealous over the sweet potatoes she grows.

“Sometimes they just point a finger,” says Norah Makubuya, a project manager at Reach One Touch One. “They just say, ‘It’s that person.’”

Before the problems began, Kanyomushana says a piece of bark cloth – a fabric made from the pounded bark of trees – went missing from her small home. She thinks someone took it to a local witch doctor to have it looked at and determine if she’s guilty.

The witch doctor who was consulted was Fredianah Tibeijuka, who is in her 70s and says she was born with a gift to heal. In her small home, in a stout metal basket beneath a lofted bed are the tools of her trade – a jumble of twigs and roots and herbs.

“This is to help people give birth,” she says as she unscrews a jar’s pink cap. “This is to help people that have swollen body parts,” she says pinching at something else. “This stick, I burn it,” she says, an antidote to make poor people become rich.

She cannot answer why she hasn’t grown rich from the same stick and she doesn’t know why so many of those who are accused of witchery happen to be older people like her. All she is sure of is that she didn’t get it wrong in branding Kanyomushana a witch.

“I’m telling you and get it right,” she says sternly. “That woman is a witch. She is a really, really bad person. She deserves to die. I cannot help anyone who is a witch. I curse them.”

Similar stories repeat around Africa.

Leo Igwe, a 54-year-old Nigerian who started Advocacy for Alleged Witches to help those facing accusations, says more than 70% of the cases his organization receives involve older people. Igwe says witchcraft accusations are also used sometimes by families looking for an excuse to dump an elder they no longer want to be saddled with caring for.

The cases are about evenly split between men and women, but Igwe says women suffer the worst outcomes, including being mobbed, brutally injured and even killed.

Witchcraft accusations are not unique to Africa, nor to older people, and progress has been made in many parts of the continent in addressing the issue. Nonetheless, supernatural beliefs are widespread and some find them a catch-all explanation for life’s ills. Even some who are hurt by accusations find it hard to let go of their belief in the occult.

Alice Mary Nasanga, who is about 70, was banished by some members of her family after a brother claimed he survived her witchery. She says he went to money-hungry witch doctors who affirmed his accusation and that nearly everyone went along with what he said.

“He made up a story and everyone believed him,” she says.

In the next room, Nasanga’s 30-year-old son lies on a dirty concrete floor, naked and moaning. He’s steadily deteriorated since getting malaria and no longer can speak.

Nasanga says she looks at him and can’t help wondering if he might be under a spell. Witchcraft, she says, may not just be the cause of his illness but the only thing that can save him.

Data on witchcraft accusations is sparse, making it difficult to say whether the problem is any better or worse than the past. But Igwe says it tends to follow the ebbs and flows of the economy, with cases increasing during downturns, as parts of Africa are in today.

“When people are not able to meet their material needs they take a leap into the supernatural looking for the solutions,” he says. “Witchcraft becomes handy.”

As Africa becomes home to more and more older people, advocates for accused witches say they’re seeing a greater number of cases involving people with dementia. Igwe’s organization says at least 30% to 40% of the cases it handles involve cognitive issues.

Dr. Temitope Farombi, a geriatric neurologist in Ibadan, Nigeria, started a “Dementia Not Witchcraft” campaign six years ago to educate the public about the disease. She was prompted by incidents involving older people who wandered from their homes and then were attacked by someone who perceived them as a supernatural threat.

“You started seeing older adults being in harm’s way,” says the 44-year-old doctor, “and people hunting them, beating them, burning them, stoning them.”

Education is also at the heart of the work being done by Berrie Holtzhausen, the founder of Alzheimer’s Dementia Namibia. He has gone village to village and tribe to tribe in Namibia, both helping those accused of witchcraft and trying to prevent future cases by teaching people about brain disorders like dementia that may spark accusations.

Because there is so little familiarity with dementia, witchcraft becomes a go-to explanation for out-of-the-ordinary behaviors another villager might exhibit.

“Why can’t they find their way back from the river? Why are they talking to themselves at night? Why are they undressing themselves and walking between villages?” Holtzhausen says, mimicking the questions he hears. “If you are turning gray, you are a witch.”

Holtzhausen, 68, is a former pastor who began working with dementia patients about 15 years ago. The work has taken on a new dimension since he, too, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease about four years ago.

He has noticed a progression of the disease since his diagnosis. One time, he walked off from a store with a pair of glasses without paying for them. Sometimes he notices himself getting angry or having bad dreams. Other times, he struggles to find a word.

Still, he plans to continue his advocacy as long as he is able.

“I think this is what’s keeping me alive,” he says.

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Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky

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