Penis theft panic hits city...
Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:47am EDT By Joe Bavier
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.
Rumors 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.
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN2319603620080424
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Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:47am EDT By Joe Bavier
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.
Rumors 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.
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN2319603620080424
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