A woman and her partner have been accused of stealing the body parts of two South African boys after they were found mutilated and murdered in Soweto Wednesday.
The boys were friends at a local school when it was discovered that the couple used them as “muti killings,” a disturbing South African trend where victims are killed and dismembered. Their parts are then sent to witch doctors for rituals, according to a Mirror report.
Nqobile Zulu, 5, and Tshiamo Rabanye, 6, were found dumped in a field soaked in blood in fields about a mile apart from each other. Each child was found without their genitals, noses and lips.
Authorities also found that they were repeatedly stabbed with their throats slit after being kidnapped from their school.
Police confirmed that the suspects are a 50-year-old woman and her 39-year-old partner. Their identities have not been released.
“We have cracked the case with the arrest of a man and a woman yesterday following a forensic investigation into exactly what happened,” South African Police spokesman Lieutenant Mavela Masondo confirmed to the media. “We brought two prime suspects in for questioning who have since been charged with murder and they will appear before Soweto magistrates on Friday.”
He added that “the 50-year-old woman is known to the family of one of the victims and we have recovered an object which is part of the investigation which will be shown in court. The possibility of it being muti murders forms part of the investigation” he said.
According to the report, witch doctors typically pay for the body parts and request that they are taken while the victims are still alive. The witches, known as “sagomas” then use the body parts to cook up black magic potions, which are then sold to clients who seek to enhance their sex life, increase their fortunes or improve their businesses.
One of South Africa’s prominent forensic psychologists, Dr. Gerard Labuschagne, said that the boys were found in a manner, which indicates that they were victims of muti killings.
The report further revealed that the suspects attempted to capture more children, but some escaped. A father to one of the escapees said that he is unsure how his son survived.
“How he escaped and ran away we don’t know as he is still a young boy but he got loose and ran home and managed to survive,” the father said.
Data shows that of the 558 child murders and 294 attempted child murders between April 2022 and September 2022, a small percentage of them were muti murders.
“Muti murders are not categorized in official figures but crime experts estimate there are between 50 and 300 a year in South Africa where the most valuable targets for mutilation are young children,” the report concluded.
