News

Haiti: Meeting A Haitian Voodoo Priest

Haiti, 2010 — A U.N. tank had just struck our vehicle and we were escorted back to the base. The soldiers were Chilean, which meant my Spanish wasn’t so useless. They offered us food and water as they repaired the damage to our seasoned S.U.V. When we got back on the road it was easy to see why the UN drove tanks in this region. The roads were decimated by years of forgotten promises of foreign aid and of neglect from corrupt officials. We were driving with one mission in mind, to follow the footsteps of Wade Davis, the Canadian ethnobotanist and author of The Serpent in the Rainbow. Full story here

Chile: Into the Cave of Chile’s Witches

There is a place in South America that was once the end of the earth. It lies close to the 41st parallel, where the Maule River empties into the Pacific Ocean, and in the first years of the 16th century it marked the spot at which the Empire of the Incas ended and a strange and unknown world began.

South of the Maule, the Incas thought, lay a land of mystery and darkness. It was a place where the Pacific’s waters chilled and turned from blue to black, and where indigenous peoples struggled to claw the basest of livings from a hostile environment. It was also where the witches lived and evil came from. Read full story here 

Papua New Guinea: It’s 2013, And They’re Burning ‘Witches’

Belief in black magic persists in Papua New Guinea, where communities are warping under the pressure of the mining boom’s unfulfilled expectations. Women are blamed, accused of sorcery and branded as witches — with horrific consequences. Full story here

Tanzania: Cops suspect witchcraft in albino attack

Arusha – Tanzanian police have arrested five men in connection to a brutal attack on an albino woman whose arm was hacked off earlier this week, presumably to sell the limb for use in witchcraft. More here 

Tanzania: Attackers hack hand off 7-yr-old Tanzania albino boy for witchcraft

Dar Es Salaam: Attackers collecting body parts of albinos for witchcraft have hacked off the hand of a seven-year old boy in Tanzania, the latest in a series of bloody assaults, officials said Sunday. Full story here

Kenya: Suspected ‘witch’ arrested in Mishomoroni

A suspected witchdoctor has been arrested in Kisauni’s Mishomoroni area with residents claiming that the suspect and his counterpart who has gone into hiding have been involved in suspicious activities. The locals now want action taken against the suspect whom they claim has been involved in the disappearance of many children in the area. See TV coverage here 

South Africa: Man beheads wife for muti

Johannesburg – A man has been arrested for killing his wife and cutting off her head in an apparent muti murder on the East Rand, Gauteng police said on Wednesday. More here

Uganda: Witchdoctor arrested over child sacrifice

The Police in Katwe have arrested a witchdoctor suspected to have murdered a two-month old child in ritual sacrifice. Full story here 

Zambia: ‘My son thinks I’m a witch’

A  LUSAKA woman told the Boma local court that her former lover poisoned their son’s mind against her, telling him she was a witch and that he should avoid her at all costs. Read full story here 

Nigeria: Murder for money…Victims of ritual murders tell their stories

Virtually every day, many police stations nationwide especially in the South West of the country are inundated with reports of missing persons. Available records show that less than 10 percent of such persons ever returned home. A scary 90 percent of them was not found and the bodies of a negligible number that were eventually seen, dumped either on the roadsides, bush paths or inside gutters, mutilated and their vital organs removed. More here