Africans living with dementia are often accused of witchcraft, with common symptoms such as forgetfulness "seen as evidence of evil", said The Guardian. People accused have been "set on fire, stoned, beaten to death and buried alive".
In 2020 the UN estimated that there were at least 20,000 victims of such "harmful practices" across 60 countries between 2009 and 2019 – mostly women. The human rights commissioner "expects numbers to increase" as the prevalence of dementia grows across the continent.
Numbers are difficult to ascertain as degenerative brain diseases often go undiagnosed and brain scan technology is expensive or inaccessible. But a 2017 report by Alzheimer's Disease International estimated that 2.13 million people were living with dementia in sub-Saharan Africa. Those numbers were projected to nearly double every 20 years.
Meanwhile, the traditional system of caring for older people within families is "unravelling", said National Geographic. "Modern life has eroded that," a social worker from South Africa-based organisation Dementia SA told the magazine.
And many in Nigeria have never heard of the disease. "There's a huge knowledge gap at community level about what dementia is," Dr Temitope Farombi, a consultant neurologist and founder of the Brain Health Initiative Nigeria, told The Guardian. "Families are often embarrassed and lock their family members in, or out, or dump them in spiritual centres to pray for them, hoping evil spirits will be released."
Accusing someone of witchcraft is illegal in Nigeria and punishable by up to two years in prison, but the law is rarely enforced, according to Leo Igwe, the founder of Advocacy for Alleged Witches. Nevertheless, he told The Guardian, more information and awareness of dementia "can help us drastically reduce, and end, the abuses". | 
