Case file · Folklore / legend
Bouya Omar shrine closed
In June 2015 Morocco's health ministry closed the shrine of Bouya Omar near Kelaat Sraghna, where families had for generations left mentally ill relatives, often chained, to be freed of jinn.
2015 CE · 32.15, -7.65 · status: official
The account
The government's 'Operation Karama' (Dignity) moved several hundred people to hospitals. The shrine had been known as a place of healing and baraka since the saint's tomb was founded around the 16th century.
The sceptical view
Human-rights groups had long denounced chaining and beatings there. Psychiatrists see much of what was called possession as untreated psychosis.