Suspected Muti Killing

(Article from:The Phoenix and Verulam Sun Vol.7 No.30 – 30 July 2009. South Africa)

During the Human Rights League research (2008), male genitalia were found to be the body parts mentioned most during the interviews.

The interviewed Police officers stated that there are several cases of bodies being found missing body parts, however according to these informants, the parts are never found “But there are lots of cases in which the human organs are extracted but never found [...] We find many times bodies without organs or body parts” (MZ_Na_GI_2).

The informants interviewed in this research, when giving an example of an incident where body parts had either been taken or found, were asked what they thought the body part would be used for. Of the 62 informants who chose to answer this question, 93% believed they were either to be sold or used for activities relating to witchcraft and Muti. The objective of using body parts in the so-called ‘Muti murder’ is to create powerful traditional medicine based partly on human body parts. Traditional medicine has a wide range of purposes, for instance to heal illnesses, aid economic advancement or hurt enemies.

As part of Muti practices, some witchdoctors make use of the so-called ‘medicine murder’ or ‘Muti murder’, where body parts are removed from the bodies of living persons. The intention is not to kill the victims as such, but it is expected that they will die due to the damage inflicted (Ashforth, 2005). It is a deep founded belief of the witchdoctors that the body parts are necessary for the Muti to work and it is required that the victims are dismembered while they are still alive. The screams of the victims are believed to make the medicine more powerful by waking the spirits and empowering them, thus resulting in victims being mutilated alive (Griffin et al 2004, Labuschagne 2004). This research found some accounts where the victim was alive when the body parts were extracted, however a number of victims mentioned in this research were murdered and the body parts were removed post-mortem. An interviewed Doctor in Mozambique stated “The genital was removed with a very precise cut, or probably two cuts, one from each side removing the genitals. And the cuts were made after the person was dead […] no sign of bleeding. It means she was dead when the injuries were done” (MZ_MC_I_2).