72 year old grandmother burned alive as a witch – Examiner.com
Madam Ama Hemmah, a 72 year-old resident of the African nation of Ghana was set upon by a mob while en route to visit one of her 3 adult children in Tema. They allegedly tortured her into confessing she was a witch, then doused her with kerosene and set her on fire. A student nurse, Deborah Pearl Adumoah, chanced upon the scene and doused the flames. She took Madame Hemmah to a police station from whence she was transferred to the Tema General Hospital where the severely burned woman died the next day.
Arrested as suspects in the murder were 55 year-old Samuel Fletcher Sagoe, an Evangelical pastor, Samuel Ghunney, a 50 year-old photographer, Emelia Opoku, 37; Nancy Nana Ama Akrofie, 46, and Mary Sagoe, 52, all unemployed.
Mr Augustine Gyening, Assistant Commissioner of Police and commander of the Tema Regional Police described the incident for the press (from VibeGhana):
…about 10 a.m. on November 20, 2010, Samuel Fletcher Sagoe (the Evangelical pastor) visited his sister (Emelia) at Site 15, a suburb of Tema Community 1, and saw Madam Hemmah sitting in Emelia’s bedroom at a time Emelia had sent her children to school.
Mr Gyening said Samuel then raised an alarm, attracting the attention of the principal suspect, Samuel Ghunney, and some people in the neighbourhood.
According to him, the suspects claimed that Madam Hemmah was a known witch in the area and subjected her to severe torture, compelling her to confess to being a witch.
He said after extracting the confession from Madam Hemmah, Ghunney asked Emelia for a gallon of kerosene and with the help of his accomplices, poured it all over the woman and set her ablaze.
From VibeGhana:
In their caution statement, the suspects denied the offence and explained that they poured anointing oil on the old woman which caught fire when they offered prayers to exorcise the demon from her. (emphasis mine)
Mr Stephen Kwame Ofosu Yeboah, 48, one of Madame Hemmah’s sons, was interviewd by the Daily Graphic and denied the killers’ allegations:
“Our mother was never a witch and had never suffered any mental disorder throughout her entire life, apart from exhibiting signs of forgetfulness and other symptoms of old age.”
Madame Hemmah’s body was sent to the Police Hospital morgue for an autopsy and the entire affair has been referred to the Ghana Attorney General’s office for advice.
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18)
Much of Africa has a long history of belief in witchcraft but the persecution of witches has been given a new lease on life in recent decades by the many evangelical ministries that have sprung up that, like some of their American counterparts (and sometimes sponsors) are Bible literalists. Witch-hunting has become a way many pastors compete for congregants and power in their communities (Remember Bishop Thomas Muthee, a regular visitor to Wasilla’s Assembly of God Church who, in that now-famous video, prayed over Sarah Palin so she would be protected from “every form of witchcraft? He’s a witch-hunter from Kenya).
As pointed out in an earlier report, many of the victims of these “witch-hunters” are children (the video at left is of children being persecuted as witches in the Congo but that’s not the only country this is happening in), but anyone young or old may fall prey to them and be ostracised, tortured or even killed. Not all the witch-hunters are Christians but the fusion between evangelical Christianity and traditional beliefs is taking a horrible toll each year in sub-Saharan Africa.
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