NEARLY 300 people have been killed in a witch-hunt around the remote town of Aru in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the past two weeks, Ugandan military authorities confirmed yesterday.
The victims were beaten or hacked to death and hundreds of others were forced to flee their villages after drunken mobs descended on their homes in search of witches accused of casting spells and poisoning people.
Ugandan troops, who have been deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo to support rebels fighting the Government, claim to have arrested most of the perpetrators and brought the frenzy of killings under control.
But Jimmy Adriko, a photographer for Uganda’s New Vision newspaper, said that people were still being killed and hundreds of men, women and children, many of whom had been wounded with machetes, were fleeing to Uganda.
The victims were rounded up, forced to hand over witch paraphernalia, including secret charms and potions, and name their accomplices before being bludgeoned to death with clubs and machetes.
One of those arrested over the Aru killings, Chief Ovu Sudara, said: “We asked people to identify the suspects. We call them and ask them to produce charms and name other suspects. Then the mob kills them.”
He said that June had been earmarked for the elimination of sorcerers.
Mr Adriko, speaking from the scene of the killings, said: “It spread from one village to another. Everyone suspected of practising witchcraft was attacked. It is still going on. Many of the villagers have fled across the border into Uganda. The villages are being terrorised.”
The killings apparently began on June 15 in the village of Yuku after a child came to school with an exercise book containing a list of five people who had recently died. A teacher who saw the child’s list raised the alarm with village elders.
Mr Adriko said: “They beat confessions out of the child’s father, who admitted killing the people and using their blood to travel around at night.”
Witches are believed to use blood to liberate themselves from normal physical constraints so that they can travel at superhuman speeds.
Fear of evil spirits is common among the Lugbara people who live on either side of the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, where the killing of suspected witches is a frequent occurrence.
Mr Adriko said that more than 80 people implicated in the murders had been arrested by the Ugandan military, which had complained about a lack of co-operation from Democratic Republic of Congo officials “because it is normal to eliminate witches there”. Brigadier Henry Tumukunde, army commander in northern Uganda, said that some of those arrested had pleaded to be set free so that they could “finish off” other suspected witches.
The lynch mobs were joined by unemployed local villagers eager for spoils. Mr Adriko said: “After the beatings and killings, the mob steals the animals and property of the dead. Then they get drunk on beer and move on to the next village.”