Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers in mid April who were accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynching triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
Rumors of penis theft began circulating in early April in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo’s sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants.
Purported victims claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure. [Reuters]
This is just so bizarre.