Three suspects 'ate human flesh'

2005-10-15 18:20

Kigali - Three Rwandan men have been arrested for murder and accused of cannibalising their victims in what are believed to be the first cases of anthropophagy in Rwanda since the 1994 genocide, prosecutors said on Saturday.

"Three people have been accused of cannibalism," said Jean Bosco Mutangana, the spokesperson for the state prosecutor's office.

"As far as I know it's the first time since the genocide that we have recorded such cases."

"They are accused of murder and Rwandan law refers only to the mutilation of corpses, not to cannibalism, but they ate human flesh," he said, adding that trauma from the genocide may well be behind the aberrant behaviour.

The three suspects were arrested earlier this week following incidents in two neighbouring districts in Kigali Ngali province, one of which involved the rape, murder and cannibalisation of a 12-year-old girl, Mutangana said.

"The first man accused is only 24," he said.

"He was 12 at the time of the genocide. We suspect him of having raped a young orphan girl and genocide survivor of 12 before killing her and cutting her up to eat the flesh in Nyamata district."

The second case, in Gashora district, involves a jealous husband who, with the help of an accomplice, allegedly poisoned his wife's lover and buried him before digging up the body to eat the flesh, Mutangana said.

Linked to witchcraft or militia campaigns

"We are very worried," he said, adding: "This could be the consequences of the genocide. There were some cases of killings with cannibalism in 1994, notably in Nyamata.

Some 800 000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, were slaughtered during the 100-day genocide in 1994 during which acts of torture, as well as mutilation and profanation of corpses were commonplace.

Although Rwanda has not recorded any incidents of cannibalism since the genocide, many such cases have however been reported in recent years, at least one in bordering Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

There it is frequently either linked to witchcraft or militia campaigns to spread terror among communities where the population has become resigned to mere death.

In some cases, cannibals believe that eating the flesh of another human gives them his powers or qualities. Thus, eating the flesh of an old man can confer wisdom while eating a child's flesh can have a purifying effect.

Rebels from the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), a group now incorporated into the Congolese army, were accused by the United Nations of having used cannibalism as a weapon in late 2002.

The following year charred, severed human limbs were visible at the scene of a large-scale massacre carried out by ethnic Lendu fighters in Largo in the DRC's northeastern Ituri district.

Dozens of bodies found at other massacre sites in Ituri around the same time had had their internal organs removed, either to be dried and worn as charms by militia or to be consumed.

- AFP