Friday, February 08, 2013

"Witch" burned alive in Papua New Guinea

How I hate, hate, hate to write this post. It's been a long time since a modern-day witchcraft execution showed up in the news...and this time it was more brutal than usual.

We think of witchcraft as a belief abandoned in the Dark Ages.

It wasn't.

The Associated Press reports today that a woman was attacked by a mob, tortured by being burned with a hot iron, doused in gasoline and set on fire on a pile of tires. Sound familiar? Yes, in two ways. One, the description of the torture sounds exactly like the torture applied centuries ago to medieval people accused of witchcraft. Two, a "witch" was burned atop of tires only about a year ago in Papua New Guinea. Here's the link to my blog post (and another) about that. It seems tire burning is their favored method there. Burning rubber to cover the stench of burning flesh? Perhaps.

Either way, it's horrible and kills me to read. Hundreds watched this woman's suffering and did nothing to stop it. They say it looked like fifty different people "had hands on her" during her time of torture. Imagine being the one small person in the middle of all that anger directed at you?

It is said she was accused of causing the death of a six-year-old child through sorcery. She herself was the mother of two, and it's said her husband was the main attacker against her.

I'm not a praying sort, but tonight my heart and my prayers go to her soul.



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5 comments:

Unknown said...

I am also shocked about your blog, Erika. I never thought such a thing can still happen in this modern day. Isn't there anything else people of this generation can do to afford such people due process? It is sad indeed but thank you for sharing.

Erika M said...

Tanisha, Thank you for your response. I agree, it feels so helpless...! I'm going to repost an old post from 2009 that contains a link to an organization that lets us donate money to people helping children accused of witchcraft.

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