PressBridge

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, two women aged 60 and 65, accused of witchcraft, were stoned and then burned in public on Sunday. The scene took place in a village in South Kivu, in the east of the country. 
According to André Byadunia, president of civil society in Uvira, the capital of the territory where the events took place, quoted by AFP, a group of young people from Nyamutiri “stoned these women and burned their bodies after extirpating them. from their home.”

He specified that these two women had been killed because they were accused by part of the population of practicing witchcraft and “of being behind the deaths of several people” in the community. 

“The ashes are being cleared from the scene of the tragedy,” said Makelele Murande, administrative secretary of the Bafuliru chiefdom, where the two women were killed, reached by telephone on Monday at midday. . “The police and the army were not able to intervene in time to save these two ladies,” lamented the deputy administrator of the Uvira territory, Timothée Bakanirwa. 

Demonstrations controlled by the army
According to Kelvin Bwija, a civil society leader in the area, protests subsequently broke out, organized by “the people who killed” the two women. He told AFP that protesters were complaining that “alleged witches who are arrested are always released by the security services.”

Makelele Murande indicated that “thanks to the intervention of the army”, the demonstrators’ barricades had been cleared and that “the situation had returned to normal”. According to Nelly Adidja, of the Association of Media Women (AFEM) of South Kivu, 33 women accused of witchcraft were killed in the province in 2023, and “many others have been chased from their villages and live in wandering ". 

The president of civil society in Uvira denounces “retrograde practices”, which according to him must be abandoned. Mr. Byadunia calls for the “culprits of this act” to be prosecuted and deplores “having to bury lynched women”, as “women’s month” begins. 

In 2021, Professor Bosco Muchukiwa, sociologist and director general of the Higher Institute of Rural Development (ISDR) of Bukavu, observed “a resurgence of the phenomenon” which he attributed to a failure of the State in “its sovereign missions” , because according to him, “the police and justice do notnot their job.”