A self-confessed cannibal walked into a police station last Friday carrying a human leg and hand, confessing that he was “tired of eating human flesh”.
The man’s voluntary confession let to the arrest of four individuals in the central South African town of Estcourt, a town in the country’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
According to the report on China Press the man had led police to a house where more human remains were found.
Police spokeswoman Colonel Thembeka Mbhele told reporters that they recovered the remains of one woman.
“It is alleged that the suspects raped, killed and cut up the body of a woman, which they then consumed. The allegations by the suspect are that they would rape and kill the victims before they could cut them into pieces and eat their parts,” Mbhele told the court.
According to media reports, one of the suspects was a traditional healer or witch doctor, known as a nyanga.
This witch doctor had apparently used his influence to compel hundreds of people in the town to eat the human flesh from the victim when they visited him.
A court hearing on Monday had heard testimony of a local councillor Mthembeni Majola who testified that Mbatha gave human flesh to around 300 residents when they sought his spiritual help.
“We don’t know what to do or who to trust,” the councillor testified, news portal NYPost reports.
“This has happened within our community.
“Families, people we know and live with, have now confessed to eating this woman,” Majola revealed that some residents even said they dug up graves at the witch doctor’s request to give him the remains.
Villagers were told that if they exhumed the graves and brought the remains to the witch doctor, they will become stronger and wealthier.
The town’s Occult-Related Crime Unit is reportedly investigating the claims while the four suspects have been formally charged with murder, conspiracy to murder as well as being in possession of human body parts.
According to media reports, cannibalism itself is not a crime in South Africa.
However, the nation’s Human Tissue Act of 1983 prohibits possession of any human tissue or body part without a permit. That covers organ donations, post mortems and other medical procedures.
– mD
