Gambian President Yayah Jammeh threatens to 'slit the throats' of gay people

He said in a speech that "no white person can do anything about it"

Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh arrives at the Elysee palace to participate in the Elysee summit for peace and safety in Africa, on December 6, 2013 in Paris. AFP PHOTO/ ALAIN JOCARD

(ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/Getty Images))

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

President Yahya Jammeh, who seized power in a military coup in 1994, made the chilling threat apparently in response to Western leaders who have criticised the nation's regressive attitude to homosexuality.

The dictator made the comments during a nationwide agricultural tour, the latest in a long line of shockingly anti-gay comments.

According to VICE News, in a speech to townspeople in Farafeni, Jammeh said: 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."

Jammeh went to the White House in 2014 for the Africa Leaders Summit

(BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

In December last year, the European Union 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.

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