The ManicaPost
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
TEARS have barely dried on the cheeks of villagers in Kanganya Village deep in the thickets of Mutasa District following the recent cold blooded murder of the Benza twins.
So many unanswered questions and an aura of despair still hang over the once peaceful community as people struggle to come to terms with the sudden moral regression of society.
This is not peculiar to Kanganya Village.
In fact, ritual killings or human sacrifice have left people in various communities across the country living in fear following a spate of suspected ritual killings that have taken place in recent months.
The sad and most painful part of the trend is that children, the very innocent souls that society is duty bound to protect, have been most of the victims.
In Chigodora area, a few kilometres from Mutare towards the Mozambican border, children’s safety is no longer guaranteed with so many tales of ritual killings being told, while some villains such as the lady widely identified as Sharon gain infamy because of the disturbing trend.
Social and mainstream media have reported cases of human body parts allegedly removed from the corpses.
But who exactly is behind the sudden increase of these human sacrifices?
Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association (ZINATHA) president, Mr Gorge Kandiero said: “It is unfortunate that whenever human sacrifices are being talked about people point at traditional healers, yet all our members do not help anyone seeking riches through human sacrifices.
“Some of these ritual murders are happening in some churches and yet people still believe it is only linked to traditional healers.”
The ZINATHA president said family members are the main perpetrators of human sacrifices, especially those involving children.
“We really have to be honest and say it out, family members of victims are mainly the perpetrators, especially when it involves children.
“We are killing our own and that is known,” he said.
Mr Kandiero said he gets so many enquiries from people who seek help in trying to get rich quickly.
“The problem that we have is that people now want to get rich quickly without any form of work. This is why I always advise people to find smart ways of making money. I get so many enquiries from people who seek help to get rich quickly and I always tell them to find ways of working hard to earn their money,” he said.
Be that as it may, one wonders whether this could be a result of a lack of deterrent legal framework.
Prominent Mutare lawyer, Mr Passmore Nyakureba, said: “My personal views are that the maximum sentence which is capital punishment or death by hanging should always be applied in all cases of ritual murder since there is always actual intention to commit murder.
“Anything else, even life sentence, may trivialise such heinous crimes and will certainly not deter would-be offenders. Ritual killings are committed in gruesome ways and leave behind unbearable pain and anguish to the families robbed of their loved ones at the pleasure of lazy people who want easy money.
“So the courts of law must show their anger at such practices and also appease the court of public opinion by making sure that justice is served.”
The mortiferous character of ritual killing is not unique to Zimbabwean communities and motives vary.
There is a belief that female body parts possess supernatural powers that bring good fortune or make criminals invisible to police and other authorities.
A man’s private parts are believed to increase virility while a tongue can supposedly smooth one’s path to a lover’s heart.
In fact, ritual killing is perceived as an act of spiritual fortification.
A spate of killings of people with albinism in north-west Tanzania placed the country in the international limelight in 2007.
It is believed that the bones of people with albinism were a necessary ingredient in wealth-generating magic potions and thus provoked the killings which had no precedents in Tanzania or the local Sukuma culture.
Hence, it is narrated that Tanzania announced a ban on witchdoctors who are believed to have been targeting the country’s albino population in mistaken .
