PRESIDENT JAMMEH OF GAMBIA, THREATENS TO SLIT THROATS OF GAY PEOPLE LIVING IN GAMBIA

President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia, has threatened to "slit the throats" of gay people living in the country, in a speech about the nation's youth.

He made the chilling threat apparently in response to Western leaders who have criticised the nation's regressive attitude to homosexuality.

The dictator, who seized power in a military coup in 1994, made the comments during a nationwide agricultural tour, the latest in a long line of shockingly anti-gay comments.

Jammeh said, in a speech to townspeople in Farafeni: If you do it (in Gambia) I will slit your throat. If you are a man and want to marry another man in this country and we catch you, no one will ever set eyes on you again, and no white person can do anything about it.

The European Union last year in December, cut millions of euros of funding to Gambia over the country's terrible human rights record. The mainly Muslim country is now mostly supported by aid from Middle Eastern countries.

Jammeh, in February 2014 called gay people "vermins", vowing to fight them "the same way we are fighting malaria-causing mosquitoes, if not more aggressively."

He has also claimed he can cure HIV and AIDS with natural herb remedies, and has said that he allowed "too much expression" before introducing draconian attacks on the freedom of the press in 2005.