Religious Beliefs

[teresaq]

http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/

BBC Report on Human Sacrifice in Uganda Claims UK Link

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Richard Bartholomew

A few days ago the BBC broadcast “The Witch Doctors’ Children” as part of its Our World strand; parts of the programme, which was presented by Chris Rogers, previously went out last week as segments on Newsnight. The documentary focused on Uganda, and covered child human sacrifice, the use of human body parts in juju rituals, and child trafficking to the UK.

The programme made more of a case than Newsnight’s 2010 report on the subject, which relied on the dubious confession of an ex-witch doctor turned Christian and which left a number of questions hanging. This time, there was some hard evidence: this included an account of Allan, a boy who had narrowly survived a sacrifice attempt with serious injuries; interviews with bereaved relatives in Mukono District, where the problem is most severe; and - most crucially – secret filming in which a village witch doctor offered to acquire a child and perform a sacrifice.

A tie-in BBC report here describes what happened:

Quote:

…Awali invited us into his shrine, which is traditionally built from mud bricks with a straw roof. Inside, the floor is littered with herbs, face masks, rattles and a machete.

The witch doctor explained that this meeting was to discuss the most powerful spell – the sacrifice of a child.

“There are two ways of doing this,” he said. “We can bury the child alive on your construction site, or we cut them in different places and put their blood in a bottle of spiritual medicine.”

Awali grabbed his throat. “If it’s a male, the whole head is cut off and his genitals. We will dig a hole at your construction site, and also bury the feet and the hands and put them all together in the hole.”

…Awali boasted he had sacrificed children many times before and knew what he was doing. After this meeting, we withdrew from the negotiations.

We handed our notes to the police. Awali is still a free man.

The rest of the article can be read at the link provided.

[teresaq]

Human sacrifice is bad enough in itself -- but children? Poor, helpless, defenseless, children...

An off-shoot article talks about children killed after being accused of witchcraft...

[Gail]

Sad... My son encountered reports of this type of thing in Liberia when he was there. I'm not sure if he actually met someone who practised it.