Witch Burning Epidemic in Papua New Guinea

by Tina Kells | January 9, 2009 at 12:49 pm

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In most parts of the world witch burning is something from the history book, but in Papua New Guinea and other parts of the South Pacific it is becoming an epidemic.

In nations like Papua New Guinea where AIDS is at staggering levels, women, men and even children have been killed, in most cases by hanging or by being burned alive, amidst accusations of practicing witchcraft.

In South Africa, where the problem of witch burning is also at epidemic proportions, the government attempted to address the issue with introduction of a Witchcraft Suppression Bill which was stalled in parliament in 2006.

Her death adds to a growing list of men and women who have been accused of sorcery and then tortured or killed in the South Pacific island nation, where traditional beliefs hold sway in many regions.
The victims are often scapegoats for someone else's unexplained death, and bands of tribesmen collude to mete out justice to them for their supposed magical powers, police said.

The country's Post-Courier newspaper reported Thursday that more than 50 people were killed in two Highlands provinces last year for allegedly practicing sorcery.
In a well-publicized case last year, a pregnant woman gave birth to a baby girl while struggling to free herself from a tree. Villagers had dragged the woman from her house and hung her from the tree, accusing her of sorcery after her neighbor suddenly died.

She and the baby survived, according to media reports.

The killing of witches, or sangumas, is not a new phenomenon in rural areas of the country.

Emory University anthropology professor Bruce Knauft, who lived in a village in the western province of Papua New Guinea in the early 1980s, traced family histories for 42 years and found that one in three adult deaths were homicides -- "the bulk of these being collective killings of suspected sorcerers," he wrote in his book, "From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology."

In recent years, as AIDS has taken a toll in the nation of 6.7 million people, villagers have blamed

The latest "witch burning" tragedy is a blaring example of the kind of desperation that can lead people to cling to superstition when looking to remedy the AIDS pandemic.

Early Tuesday, a group of people dragged the woman, believed to be in her late teens to early 20s, to a dumping ground outside the city of Mount Hagen. They stripped her naked, bound her hands and legs, stuffed a cloth in her mouth, tied her to a log and set her on fire, Kauba said.
"When the people living nearby went to the dump site to investigate what caused the fire, they found a human being burning in the flames," he said. "It was ugly."

A young woman was stripped naked and burnt alive at the stake in Papua New Guinea, possibly because she was accused of being a witch, newspapers reported on Wednesday.

The woman, believed to be between 16 and 20 years of age, was blindfolded, gagged and lashed to a pole on a pyre of tyres and firewood on a garbage dump in Mount Hagen, a witness told the Post-Courier newspaper.

This is just the most recent example in a growing list of tragic witch killings. Other examples include:

Eastern Cape police shot dead two men after two women and a six-year-old girl were killed in a Christmas Day attack allegedly linked to witchcraft.

Ntombizanele Combo, 45, was killed after the rondavel she was in was set alight at Timane village near Dutywa, said Captain Jackson Manatha.

Her six-year-old granddaughter Sibulele Combo tried to escape, but the attackers pushed her back inside. The other two people in the hut, Combo's daughter and young son, managed to escape the fire.

On the night of September 3, a group of youths dragged the two 60-year-old women - Mangubane Msaba Zungu and Qibile Thabitha Thusi - from their home to a local sports field.
There, they doused them with petrol and set them alight. Zungu died at the scene and Thusi later died in hospital.

Ekurhuleni metro police on Thursday saved a man and a woman from a mob in Tokoza after rumours spread that they were practising witchcraft.

"At around 6pm, a 69-year-old man was cornered by a mob of about 300. They had tyres and just as they were about to burn him, police came to the scene," said metro police spokesperson Inspector Jimmy Maboko.

The man was taken to the Tokoza police station but residents managed to burn down his house in Thinthwa section. While firefighters were battling the blaze, police got a tip-off that the same crowd had gathered at the house of a 60-year-old woman, alleged to have been "working with" the man.