A Yola Magistrate’s Court on Monday ordered seven defendants to restore the health of a three-year-old girl whom they allegedly bewitched with a strange illness.

The Magistrate Umar Gangs-led Criminal Area Court I gave the defendants 24 hours to comply with the order.

According to reports, the matter involved a 60-year-old woman, Halima Jonta, of Dumne town, in the Song Local Government Area of Adamawa State. Also joined in the case were five kids, said to be between the ages of four and six.

The defendants were arrested and arraigned over allegations that they inflicted the victim with a life-threatening illness.

During the court sitting, Jonta said she and two other alleged witches had killed seven people in seven years since she joined the cult in Dumne town.

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The defendants, who were apprehended in Dumne, confessed to have bewitched the child and accused one another and other relations as being responsible for initiating them into the cult.

They claimed that efforts by them to resolve the child’s illness were abortive, adding that one Dudu, now at large, was the only person who could undo the spell.

Presiding over the matter, Gangs ordered that Dudu be arrested with immediate effect.

The magistrate said the court would hold them responsible if the health condition of the child deteriorated.

He lamented that the affected minors had not reached the age that they could be sent to a remand home, let alone a custodial centre, and wondered how the children were initiated into the cult.