Child "witches" persecuted - even killed in Nigeria!

[LongTomH]

This is absolutely ghastly! The medieval witch-hunters are reappearing in Africa, and their targets are children.

Children are targets of Nigerian witch hunt

The rainy season is over and the Niger Delta is lush and humid. This southern edge of West Africa, where Nigeria's wealth pumps out of oil and gas fields to bypass millions of its poorest people, is a restless place. In the small delta state of Akwa Ibom, the tension and the poverty has delivered an opportunity for a new and terrible phenomenon that is leading to the abuse and the murder of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children. And it is being done in the name of Christianity.

Almost everyone goes to church here. Driving through the town of Esit Eket, the rust-streaked signs, tarpaulins hung between trees and posters on boulders, advertise a church for every third or fourth house along the road. Such names as New Testament Assembly, Church of God Mission, Mount Zion Gospel, Glory of God, Brotherhood of the Cross, Redeemed, Apostalistic. Behind the smartly painted doors pastors make a living by 'deliverances' - exorcisms - for people beset by witchcraft, something seen to cause anything from divorce, disease, accidents or job losses. With so many churches it's a competitive market, but by local standards a lucrative one.

But an exploitative situation has now grown into something much more sinister as preachers are turning their attentions to children - naming them as witches. In a maddened state of terror, parents and whole villages turn on the child. They are burnt, poisoned, slashed, chained to trees, buried alive or simply beaten and chased off into the bush.

[demnan]

1. Isn't that Obama's patriarichal ancestrial home?

I wish he would speak out on this matter.

[Angela Shelley]

3. Your comment leaves me "speechless"

[salin]

2. Tragically makes me think of the Crucible and the story

it told of real events during the Salem Witch hunts.

What is it with human nature that includes such an ugly, violent group-led bloodlust?

[AnnieBW]

4. This is what happens

When you have Fundamentalist Christianity and an uneducated population.

As a Witch myself, this makes me sick. :nuke:

[QC]

5. Ironically, the Church of Nigeria is leading the schism now happening in Anglicanism

over homosexuality, which their primate, Peter Akinola, seems to consider the most important issue in the world.

Meanwhile, thousands of children are being tortured and killed in his own province and he says nothing.

[scarletwoman]

6. Good grief! This is mass insanity! These people deserve to die out, turning on their own children!

Those poor children. :cry:

This is so incredibly evil, words fail me...

[Cerridwen]

7. I find I am unable to make one civil comment about this issue. n/t

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Those poor babies! It is amazing how people can be so cruel.