In late 1978 President Sékou Touré proclaimed to journalists that all prisoners who had been sentenced to execution at Boiro were now dead. He went on to explain that Amnesty International was "trash".[11] By 1979 reports were claiming fewer than 20 of the original arrestees were still being held at Boiro. Hundreds who had been arrested never reappeared, however, and some sources put the number dead at over 4000.