A case of cannibalism involving traditional healers and potentially their patients were on Thursday causing a public outcry in South Africa.
Five men, who allegedly raped and killed at least one woman and then ate her body parts, appeared in the Estcourt Magistrate’s Court in
the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
The men, among them two traditional healers, were arrested after one of them last week walked into a police station holding a human leg
and hand, saying he was “tired of eating human flesh,” local newspaper The Witness reported.
Local ward councillor Mthembeni Majola later told journalists that about 300 residents had confessed during a community meeting to
eating human flesh given to them by one of the traditional healers.
Hundreds of people gathered in front of the court in Estcourt in outrage over the alleged cannibalism and had to be prevented by
police from storming the building.
Eating human flesh is not a criminal offence in South Africa, but the national health act forbids possession of human tissue unless authorized, as well as the desecration or mutilation of corpses.
