KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.
Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.
"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.
"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.
"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.
Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.
"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.
(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ )
Thu May 08, 2008 8:14 am
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madthumbs
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Accusations of witchcraft are prompting a series of brutal murders in PNG. The victims are usually old ladies, beaten to death with the approval of their neighbours.
“Once they eliminate the sorcerer they feel safe,” explains police officer Tamgo Nimne. Locals believe that all misfortune happens for a reason and so sorcery offers an explanation for the seemingly inexplicable. Those suspected of casting spells are often tortured by other villagers until they confess to their crimes or name other sorcerers
Thu May 08, 2008 8:17 am
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8249 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
A pregnant woman accused of being a witch has given birth while hanging from a tree.
Nolan Yekum was strung up in a noose after being found guilty of sorcery in Papua New Guinea.
But she survived after struggling to free herself - all the while giving birth to a girl, who also lived.
Mrs Yekum and her husband Paul had been hauled from their home and hung from a tree by tribesmen suspecting them of witchcraft involvement in the death of a neighbour.
Mr Yekum said later: "We managed to loosen the noose to get our feet on the ground. We were able to free ourselves.
"My wife, who was about seven months pregnant, delivered the baby while struggling to free herself.
"It was a painful experience for me and her."
The woman and her baby girl, her third child, were doing well in Mt Hagen Hospital, near Banz in Western Highlands Province, after two weeks in hiding.
The couple denied any sorcery, and have pleaded with police to quickly carry out a post-mortem on the dead neighbour to establish the true cause of death.
