Two jailed in Gabon over gruesome occult sacrifice

As I stated earlier on this site (see my August 16, 2018 post), Gabon has a very bad reputation as ritual murders is concerned. Unlike in many other African countries, in Gabon there exists a very active grassroots organization fighting these ritualistic murders and the impunity that shields perpetrators and those who command these atrocious, criminal acts, from justice. The organization is called the Association for Fighting Ritualistic Crimes (ALCR). Its president, Jean-Elvis Ebang Ondo, recently said that his organization estimates that at least 50 ritualistic crimes, in a population of less than two million, occur each year. This means that on average every week a person is ritually murdered in this West African country.  More on the good work of the ALCR in upcoming posts. 

This week a positive report emerged. Two men were found guilty of a ritualistic crime committed in 2012 and sentenced to jail. One murderer received a life sentence, while his accomplice was will have to spend 12 years in prison. However, the ALCR in its reaction said that “the people who sponsored the murder have still not been arrested.” Read everything on this case in the article reproduced below. (webmaster FVDK)

Two jailed in Gabon over gruesome occult sacrifice

Published: January 11, 2019 – 20:54 GMT 
Updated: January, 12 2019 – 17:44 GMT
By: Daily Mail Co UK / AFP

Two men have been arrested and jailed in Gabon for gunning down another man and slicing off his tongue, fingers and toes in a gruesome occult sacrifice

A court in Gabon has jailed two men accused of sacrificing a man and cutting out his organs for black magic rituals, press reports and campaigners said Friday.

Henry Bengone B’Evouna received a life sentence for gunning down Achille Obiang Ndong, while his accomplice, Gerard Mba Eyime, was jailed for 12 years for slicing off the victim’s tongue, fingers and toes, l’Union newspaper said.

The sentences were passed on Tuesday by an appeals court in Oyem in the north of the west African country.

Bengone B’Evouna had struck a deal “with a former local dignitary to provide human organs in exchange for the sum of 800,000 CFA francs,” about $1,400 or 1,200 euros, l’Union reported.

Both men admitted guilt for the crime committed in 2012, it said.

An advocacy group, the Association for Fighting Ritualistic Crimes (ALCR), which said it was providing support for the victim’s family, said “the people who sponsored” the murder “have still not been arrested.”

In Gabon and other parts of West Africa, organs are used as fetishes in magic rituals, “and often are taken from people while they are still alive,” said the organisation’s president, Jean-Elvis Ebang Ondo.

“Often, there is no prosecution for crimes of ritual killings,” he said.

“Behind them, there’s a whole network of sponsors — politicians and powerful businessmen, marabouts [witch doctors], people called ‘nganga’ who act as spotters and often are schoolchildren or close relatives, and those who carry out the killing.”

Dread of kidnapping for organ removal is common.

Ebang Ondo said his organisation estimated that at least 50 ritualistic crimes, in a population of less than two million, occurred each year.

Source: Two jailed in Gabon over gruesome occult sacrifice

Related article: Two jailed in Gabon over gruesome occult sacrifice
Source: Brinkwire, dated January 13, 2019

Gabon election raises fears of ritual killings (2008)

Published: April 16, 2008
Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Clar NiChonghaile
Antoine Lawson
Reuters

A sorcerer performs a dance in front of a sacred fire in Bitouga, some 600 km from the Gabon capital Libreville, in this September 2007 photo. REUTERS/Antoine Lawson

LIBREVILLE (Reuters) – When the body of 13-year-old Ralph Edang N’na was found drained of blood and with gaping wounds in his genitals, chest and neck last month, many in Gabon thought it was politicians who had ordered his killing.

The murder of children and young adults, whose organs are eaten or used to make magical amulets, has increased in recent years in the oil-rich central African nation. Campaigners say some Gabonese politicians use the black magic rituals to boost their chances of winning lucrative government posts.

With elections to local municipal councils due on April 27, many fear a spate of gruesome child murders.

Every week, mutilated bodies are discovered in the capital Libreville, despite police patrols, and streets quickly empty after nightfall. Anxious parents are keeping a close watch around schools to prevent children from being snatched.

“It’s before elections and ministerial reshuffles that the vilest crimes are committed and the capital empties of certain kinds of politicians who go to the interior to carry out witchcraft,” said pastor Francois Bibang, a member of the Association to Fight Ritual Crimes (ALCR).

In ritual killings, which still take place in several African countries, people, often children, are killed to obtain body parts and blood in the belief they will bring social success and political power.

The ALCR says that in February alone there were 12 such killings in Gabon.

“Unfortunately, this practice seems to be spreading again in Gabon,” said Jean-Elvis Ebang Ondo, who founded ALCR after his 12-year-old son was kidnapped, killed and mutilated in 2005.

The government set up a National Observatory for the Rights of Children in November 2006 to implement the U.N. charter on children’s rights, enshrining the right to health, education and protection from abuse.

Gabon, with just 1.6 million people, is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest oil producers but most of its population continue to live in poverty, while members of a rich elite drive shiny new cars along Libreville’s sea front boulevard.

Omar Bongo, the world’s longest-serving president, has ruled the country since 1967 and used the oil funds to weave a web of patronage which has created bitter competition for lucrative political jobs.

Ondo condemned “the silence of the state” and called on residents to “fight off these assassins who sow terror in the heart of Gabonese society”.

After a penal code approved in January omitted any mention of ritual crimes, Ondo called on the government to find out how many people had been killed in this way.

“Spare parts”

But no clear figures exist for how many children and teenagers are slain in ritual killings in Gabon.

The head of an association against ritual crimes, Frederic Ntera Etoua, said 290 killings had occurred since 1986 in the thick jungles of the Ogooue-Ivindo province in the northeast, where Ralph Edang N’na was killed.

“There is a pyramid organization with politicians at its head who pursue the famous ‘spare parts’ then the recruiters who are middle men and then the suppliers and sellers who find the innocent victims,” said Bibang.

Parliamentary speaker Guy Nzouba Ndama opened the latest session of the assembly on March 3 by denouncing ritual crimes by politicians.

So far no politicians have been convicted for involvement in such crimes. An attempt to prosecute a legislator from the oil-rich region of Gamba last year failed after he claimed parliamentary immunity.

Philippe Ndong, a psychology teacher at Libreville university, traces the rise in ritual crimes to 2001.

“As legislative elections approached, mutilated bodies were discovered around the country,” said Ndong. “An 8-year-old girl was snatched in Ndolou department and killed in Mouila. The man allegedly responsible was a candidate to parliament who entered the government after this crime.”

Ndong cites other ritual murders. In 2002, a man in his 20s, Lucien Bigoundou, was killed in the Digoudou forest of central Gabon while on a hunting trip with companions who cut off his genitals and other parts of his body.

In March 2005, the bodies of two 12-year-old boys were washed up on a Libreville beach — one was Ebang Ondo’s son. A month later, six-year-old Warlys Igor Mboumba was found dead in a Libreville gutter, his body drained of blood.

In January 2006, the bodies of three children under four were discovered in the trunk of a car in a private yard.

And last April, two men suspected of sodomizing a 3-year-old boy and draining his blood in a ritual killing were lynched.

“It is up to the government to put a swift end to this impunity or risk seeing a rise in mob justice,” said pastor Emile Ngoua, a member of the ALCR.

Source: Gabon election raises fears of ritual killings
April 16, 2008

Gabon senator arrested in ritual killing case (2013)

The article reproduced below reminded me of previous reports on ritualistic murders in Gabon. It is a saddening reality that this Equatorial African country has a very bad reputation in this respect. I have been monitoring reports on ritual murders in African countries since the end of the 1990s and Gabon ranks high on the list of counties with ritual killings. (webmaster FVDK)

Gabon senator arrested in ritual killing case

Published: June 8, 2013 / 2:01 PM
By: Reuters Staff
Reporting by Jean-Rovys Dabany; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Louise Ireland
Andrew Lawson

A sorcerer performs a dance in front of a sacred fire in Bitouga, some 600 km from the Gabon capital Libreville, in this September 2007 photo. REUTERS/Antoine

LIBREVILLE (Reuters) – A member of Gabon’s senate has been arrested in an investigation into the ritual killing of a 12-year-old girl in the central African nation four years ago, the first time a senior politician has been detained in such a case.

Rising public anger at a spate of ritual killings in Gabon, an oil-rich former French colony on the Gulf of Guinea, sparked a march by thousands of people in the capital Libreville last month after mutilated bodies washed up on beaches.

President Ali Bongo promised the protesters that anyone convicted of such killings would be jailed for life.

Senator Gabriel Eyeghe Ekomie, who was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in December, was arrested on Friday after failing to appear before a court on May 31, his lawyer said.

Eyeghe Ekomie was summoned for questioning by the court after a man convicted of the girl’s killing said at his trial in May 2012 that he did it on the senator’s orders. Eyeghe Ekomie has denied the accusation.

“This is an unjust decision because my client was not correctly summoned,” said lawyer Gisele Eyue Bekale. “We asked the judge to re-issue the summons but he did not. We will continue to appeal this decision.”

Human and animal body parts are prized by some in the region, who believe they confer magical powers. Gabon’s Association for the Prevention of Ritual Crimes estimates that at least 20 people have been killed so far this year and their lips, tongues, genitals and other organs removed. (Bold and Italics mine – FVDK, webmaster).

Earlier this week, a sack containing human genitalia was found in a building in Libreville. An investigation is underway.

Gabon is not the only African country with a black market trade in human organs.

Grave robbers dug up more than 100 bodies in Benin’s capital Cotonou in November. Cameroonian authorities in September arrested five people for trafficking when they were stopped at a checkpoint with a severed human head.