Amnesty International says 1,000 people in Gambia have been kidnapped from their villages by 'witch doctors', taken to secret detention centres and forced to drink hallucinogenic concoctions.

A British missionary couple sentenced to one year's hard labour for writing emails which were interpreted as criticising the Gambian government are hoping for a pardon after a public apology.

The Gambia is a very narrow, very densely populated strip of land almost totally surrounded by Senegal. Aside from a flaring of tensions with neighbouring Senegal over a military coup that overthrew the president in 1994, it is fortunate to have experienced long periods of peace. Sponsor a child in the Gambia here