'Bewitched' children are forced to bear curse of Congo

The children have come to this church in the squalid capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo for a priest to carry out an exorcism and cast out the demons that have possessed them.

She is glassy-eyed, silent and nervous, quite unlike the noisy children that are playing football or are gathered around a radio in the dusty street outside.

Led to the front of the simple hall Nzuzi whispers that she was tricked by some classmates into eating poisoned food. Her classmates, themselves sorcerers, later forced her to escape her home and fly in the night sky.

Nzuzi says that when her parents found out she was a witch, they threw her out of the village and abandoned her at the church, whose Pentecostal preacher is one of thousands in Kinshasa offering to deliver evil spirits.

And there is considerable demand for their services. According to the children’s rights organisation Save the Children, there are more than 20,000 children in the city who have been accused of witchcraft and abandoned by their parents.

For Yvette Malalo, the church secretary, there is no doubt Nzuzi and the other children are dangerous.

"They are possessed by the spirit of sorcery. At night the children go out, they cause damage, they can kill, destroy," she says. "These children have created havoc in their families, some have even killed their parents, their little brothers, their little sisters."

While the exorcisms will last months, and will undoubtedly be confusing and traumatic for the girl, Nzuzi can in many ways count herself lucky. At the church, at least she is fed and clothed, and is unlikely to die.

Elsewhere in Kinshasa, central Africa’s largest city, children are routinely starved, beaten and tortured if they are believed to be witches. Most sleep rough and the number cast out by their families is increasing all the time.

Save the Children, which runs a project to help the Congolese street children, believes the youngsters are being scapegoated by a society collapsing under the strain of an economic crisis that has lasted decades.

Already reeling from the 30-year misrule of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, Congo has been devastated by a four-and-a-half year war, fought between a corrupt and brutal government and rebel leaders with the backing of six other African countries, including Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Although most of the foreign troops have now left Congo and the rival factions say they are committed to a peace deal, atrocities such as mass rape, abductions, executions and even cannibalism are still being reported in much of the country. Everywhere, living standards have collapsed, as businesses and jobs are destroyed.

At the same time, the number of children accused of witchcraft has grown out of all proportion.

Balma Yahaya, of Save the Children, says: " The traditional belief in witchcraft exists here, as in most African societies. But it is now being distorted and children in particular are being victimised for a lot of things that are happening to society, like the general poverty and destitution of Congolese society.

"These are children who are being victimised and who have no way to protect themselves. And they are being accused of these things just to get rid of them."

Typically, a child is blamed when something goes wrong in the family, such as divorce, death, an illness or sudden unemployment. Even crop failures and bad dreams can prompt accusations of sorcery.

Faustin Senkete lost his job in a factory in 1996. His wife was later unable to sell as many fish in the local market as she once did, and he soon developed heart problems.

Faustin and his wife blamed their three young daughters Jenny, Glory and Prisca. After visiting their priest, the girls confessed to having been bewitched by a neighbour. Faustin claims the girls admitted turning themselves into rats at night, eating human flesh and wanting their father dead.

He explains: "Nothing was going right, I couldn’t even get my hands on a single franc. When I asked one of my girls [whether she was to blame] she said: ‘Yes, I’m responsible for that.’ We never stopped praying and trying to persuade them to give up sorcery."

Last November the girls were taken to one last exorcism rite. They were forced to pray for three days, without being given any food or water. Two of the girls survived and were deemed to have been delivered from evil. The youngest, Prisca, nine, failed the test and died in church.

Faustin says: "The first two decided to give it up, but that other one, she had reached a higher level. She even told me one day that she was greater than God."

Sadly, this is not an isolated case. In recent weeks Kinshasa’s newspapers have run stories about a young boy buried alive by his uncle, and a girl, who was almost trampled to death under the feet of a church congregation as they tried to exorcise her.

Ange Bay Bay, a children’s rights lawyer, who also runs a shelter for street children, believes responsibility for the problem is shared by the city’s growing number of new Christian churches - whose preachers often encourage families to look for scapegoats - and the failure of Congo’s justice system to stop it.

Bay Bay says many children were forced to undergo sometimes painful exorcisms in churches.

"There are children who are ironed by a clothes iron, there are others who are not given food for a whole week, there are these unbelievable things going on. There really is a war in Congo - the adults have declared war on the children."

Briefing

THE idea of witchcraft has existed since humans first banded together in groups. Prehistoric art shows magical rites which supposedly ensured successful hunting.

But with the spread of Christianity witchcraft became linked to Devil-worship. Throughout the Middle Ages witchcraft was associated with heresy and people accused of practising it were burned to death. In Europe, the witch hunt reached its peak in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

The most famous American witch trials, in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, began in 1692. Nineteen men and women were hanged.