Up to 1,000 Gambian villagers have been abducted by witch doctors to secret detention centers and forced to drink potions, a human rights group says

Amnesty International said some forced to drink the concoctions developed kidney problems, and two had died. Officials in the police, army and the president's personal protection guard had accompanied the witch doctors in the bizarre roundup, said witnesses. The human rights group asserted that many of those abducted were elderly. The London-based rights group said the witch hunters, said to be from neighboring Guinea, were invited into Gambia after the death of the president's aunt earlier in 2009 was blamed on witchcraft.