HUNCHBACKS UNDER THREAT

THE Bibiani police are appealing to the public to assist them to unravel an emerging gruesome phenomenon there of hunchbacks being allegedly killed and their humps removed for suspected ritual purposes.

Even those who die naturally, according to the police, have their bodies exhumed and the humps removed.

Bibiani District Police Commander Sampson Anane-Appiah, told the Times that the police are also seeking information on other mysterious killings in the area.

"Within a spate of seven months (January to July), nine alleged murders have been recorded within Bibiani and its environs," Mr Anane-Appiah stated.

The mysterious murders, he said, involved missing people who were later found with parts of their body organs, such as the heart, missing.

The suspicion of the community is that the humps removed from the victims are used for ritual purposes because of the strange belief that the blood is very potent.

Assistant Superintendent of Police Anane-Appiah said this month alone, two hunchbacks have been allegedly murdered in Bibiani while the body of a hunchback woman was allegedly exhumed at Nyinahini, near Bibiani, and the hunch cut off. He told the Times that last Friday, there was a near stampede at the Bibiani Government Hospital mortuary, where hun

dreds of people from the community had gathered to catch a glimpse at the body of the 65-year-old hunchback woman, who had been abducted three days earlier, whose body was found with the hunch allegedly cut off.

He said one of the victims, Yakubu Busanga, was also reported missing last Tuesday at about 7.45 p.m. from his aluminium structure home close to a mosque, opposite the Bibiani post office in the central market area.

A search team, he said, went round the town and its environs but to no avail, until last Friday at 1 p.m. when it received a report that a body had been found concealed in a sack and dumped at a refuse site.

According to the District Commander, the body had begun to decompose but "we managed to transport it to the mortuary"

He said the captors tied the man's neck with a rope and cut off the hump.

He indicated that barely two weeks before that, an 11-year-old boy with a hunch was also allegedly murdered and his hunch removed.

The police, he said, believe that the group involved in the murders of hunchbacks was the same that exhumed the body of the man at Nyinahini.

ASP Anane-Appiah said the police have stepped up investigation into the killings.

Anybody with information on the above issue can contact the Bibiani police on 024 520 8488

Obervers note that the horrible killings of people with natural offlictions have recently also been reported from Tanzania.

At least 25 people with albinism have been killed this year, mostly in the Lake Victoria zone, in Tanzania, a BBC report stated.

They are being allegedly killed because local witchdoctors say their body parts provide the potent ingredient for magic charms which many local people use to bring success in business and love.

The bodies are left limbless and sometimes with a huge hole in the neck from where blood may have been drained.

Families not only grieve because of the loss of their loved one but are also shocked at the state in which the bodies are left by the murderers.

As if that is not enough, they have to bury their dead in the house, guard the graves on their farms or build them with stones, metal bars and cement to prevent the killers from stealing the body parts.

Some people hide their albino members of family for fear of them being killed.

Old women with red eyes have been killed in parts of Tanzania, after being accused of witchcraft.

In the past, Tanzania's Albino Association (TAS) accused the government of turning a blind eye to the killing of albinos but now Tanzania's President Jakaya Kitwete, has ordered a crackdown on witchdoctors who use body parts of albinos in magic portions to bring people good luch or fortune, the BBC reported.