Woman burned alive in sorcery case in PNG
February 8, 2013, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A young mother accused of sorcery was stripped naked, doused with petrol and burned alive in front of a crowd including schoolchildren in Papua New Guinea, reports said yesterday.
The woman, named by The National newspaper as Kepari Leniata, 20, was reportedly tortured with a branding iron and tied up, splashed with fuel and set alight on a pile of rubbish topped with car tires.
According to the rival Post-Courier newspaper she was torched by villagers who claimed she killed a six-year-old boy through sorcery, with police outnumbered by onlookers and unable to intervene. A fire truck that responded to the incident, which took place on Wednesday morning in Mount Hagen city, was also chased away.
According to the reports, which were accompanied by graphic front-page images of the woman's burning corpse, she admitted to killing the boy, who died after being hospitalized with stomach and chest pains on Tuesday.
Police said they were treating the torching as murder and preparing charges against those responsible.
There is a widespread belief in sorcery in the poverty-stricken Pacific nation where many people do not accept natural causes as an explanation for misfortune, illness, accidents or death.
In 1971, the country introduced a Sorcery Act to criminalise the practice. But its law reform commission recently proposed to repeal it after a rise in attacks on people thought to practice black magic.
Local bishop David Piso said many innocent people had been killed. "Sorcery and sorcery-related killings are growing and the government needs to come up with a law to stop such practice," Piso told The National.
Police arrested dozens of people last year linked to an alleged cannibal cult accused of killing at least seven people, eating their brains raw and making soup from their penises.
(AFP)
The woman, named by The National newspaper as Kepari Leniata, 20, was reportedly tortured with a branding iron and tied up, splashed with fuel and set alight on a pile of rubbish topped with car tires.
According to the rival Post-Courier newspaper she was torched by villagers who claimed she killed a six-year-old boy through sorcery, with police outnumbered by onlookers and unable to intervene. A fire truck that responded to the incident, which took place on Wednesday morning in Mount Hagen city, was also chased away.
According to the reports, which were accompanied by graphic front-page images of the woman's burning corpse, she admitted to killing the boy, who died after being hospitalized with stomach and chest pains on Tuesday.
Police said they were treating the torching as murder and preparing charges against those responsible.
There is a widespread belief in sorcery in the poverty-stricken Pacific nation where many people do not accept natural causes as an explanation for misfortune, illness, accidents or death.
In 1971, the country introduced a Sorcery Act to criminalise the practice. But its law reform commission recently proposed to repeal it after a rise in attacks on people thought to practice black magic.
Local bishop David Piso said many innocent people had been killed. "Sorcery and sorcery-related killings are growing and the government needs to come up with a law to stop such practice," Piso told The National.
Police arrested dozens of people last year linked to an alleged cannibal cult accused of killing at least seven people, eating their brains raw and making soup from their penises.
(AFP)
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