(#5) Kenyan Villagers Burn Accused Witches Alive In Their Homes
In 2008, eight women and three men were burned to death on suspicion of being witches in Nairobi. A mob went door-to-door with a list of witches and torched thirty homes. All of the people burned alive inside their houses. According to the local police, "traditional beliefs run deep." West Kenya has a long history with faith healers and witch doctors, which can lead to incidents like this. While many witch hunts focus on younger people, almost all of the victims in Kenya were between 70 and 90 years old.
(#9) Over 3,000 People Were Lynched In Tanzania For Witchcraft... In Six Years
From 2005 to 2011, over 3,000 people were lynched in Tanzania for being witches. That’s more than 500 a year. Turns out that many older women were accused of being witches on account of having “red eyes,” which happens when you’re so poor you have to burn cow dung for heat instead of wood. Often, these women are murdered following the death of a relative as “payback.” The families “visit soothsayers to determine the cause of death and are often told that witchcraft is responsible.” Of course. According to a member of an organization that's trying to protect the rights of the local elderly: "You cannot separate witchcraft beliefs from the issue of development. The more developed people are, the less they believe in such things."
(#12) 750 People Were Executed In Assam And West Bengal, India, In Five Years
From 2003 to 2008, more than 750 people were killed for “witchcraft” in Assam and West Bengal, India. Many of these stories are horrific, with tales of heads being “taken as trophies and paraded in the streets,” stoning, and being “buried alive for allegedly cursing a relative of the village chief.” You’d almost think these horrific murders are about more than someone “being a witch.” The beliefs that lead to these accusations are most widespread in rural and impoverished tribal communities. Some interesting ideas are being put in place to stop people from doing this, namely giving pensions to elderly women.
(#3) In Papua New Guinea, Women Suspected Of Witchcraft Are Still Burned Alive
When executing a suspected “witch,” people always go over the top. It’s never “we shot the witch in the head”; it's always something like this story of a rural Papua New Guinea woman who was “bound and gagged, tied to a log, and set ablaze on a pile of tires.” The explanation given for many of the executions of these “witches” is that they’re “scapegoats for someone’s unexplained death,” because obviously, the only way to deal with your grief is to light someone on fire atop a bunch of tires. This is shockingly common in Papua New Guinea; over fifty people were killed in 2007 alone for “sorcery.” Many regions of the country still live according to traditional beliefs, which is how some citizens come to blame witches for the AIDS-related deaths of 6.7 million people.
(#8) Saudi Arabia Doesn't Even Let You Take A Rigged Witchcraft Test, They Just Fake Your Confession
In 2008, Fawza Falih, an illiterate Saudi Arabian woman, was forced to sign a confession that she used witchcraft to make one man impotent. Her conviction was "on the basis of the written statements of witnesses who said that she had bewitched them." Falih wasn’t even allowed to attend most of her hearing. She didn't even get her confession read to her. After an appeals court stayed her execution, law courts “imposed the death sentence again, arguing it would be in the public interest."
(#10) Over 100 Children Abused For Being "Witches" In Britain
From 2004 to 2014, 148 cases of child abuse were reported to the Metropolitan Police of Greater London on account of the children being “witches.” Parents believed their children were possessed by the devil or other evil spirits, and didn’t know what else to do. Some of these cases have been horrific, such as a child who “had chili peppers rubbed in her eyes to beat the devil out of her.” What makes it especially scary is that, while the big cases get on TV, this abuse goes on in homes all the time and no one hears about it. Often, this abuse is "supported by someone who within the community has portrayed themselves as an authority on faith and belief."
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About This Tool
The witch trial was one of the ways in which European Christianity persecuted its religious heresy from the end of the Middle Ages to modern times, and the victims were mostly women. The main purpose is to maintain the power of the Pope and social stability and eradicate heresy. The most famous witch approval case in history occurred in Salem, and there are some little-known brutal murders for being "witches".
The real witch trials in history are far crueler than the plots in movies and TV series. From the Middle Ages to modern times, "witch hunts" have appeared from time to time around the world. The random tool tells 14 brutal killings for "witches" that happened in other places besides Salem.
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