Children in Angola Tortured as Witches by Own Families

[seemslikeadream]

Chicago Tribune


UIGE, Angola - Helena Kufumana makes a pathetic witch.

Far from exuding wickedness, the 13-year-old schoolgirl is nervous and shy. Her "101 Dalmatians" cartoon T-shirt is grubby and doesn't fit. She swings her bare feet beneath her chair in the hyper way that all kids do. And she cries a lot. Especially about the torture.

Last month Helena was accused by her parents of sickening two of her nieces with evil spells. In retaliation, the bewildered girl says, one of her small hands was burned on a red-hot stove. Her meager possessions, including her clothes, were torched. She was choked. And finally, to destroy her reputation in the community, she was beaten in front of a large crowd. Her mother and elder sisters administered these punishments.

"They tell me that if I try to come home they will kill me," sobbed Helena, her tears spattering the floor of the church shelter where she has run for safety. "They say I'm cursed."

Many children seem to be cursed these days in the impoverished hinterlands of Angola _ accused of witchcraft by their families, then systematically abused, abandoned and even killed for imagined acts of witchcraft.
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[DarkPhenyx]

1. She can come be cursed at my house.

At least she'd be cursed in good company.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Congo witch-hunt's child victims

Prophet Onokoko says he is casting out evil spirits

'Vomit up the devil'

The procedure is simple, Prophet Onokoko explains. The boys will be made to vomit up the devil. He produces other "devils" that have been sicked up by young children: a whole prawn, a shell in the shape of a horn, and even - kept in a blue bucket which he lifts with a flourish - two barbel fish.

Angella: "They wanted to kill me"

"These came out of the mouths of children who had spirits," he tells us. "We had a girl here who vomited a large prawn. When it came out, she was at peace."
The we meet the girl, Angella, who is busy hanging washing on a line. She says she is 10 years old. Then she tells how she was treated when her parents decided their bad luck was being caused by her sorcery.

"They wanted to kill me. They wanted to throw me into a big river. They put me in a sack, ready to do it. When I escaped, they gave me shocks with an eletrical power flex."



More than 14,000 children have been thrown out of their homes



Angella: "They wanted to kill me"


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/575178.stm