BREAKING ARROWS – Community meeting in Enga to condemn witchcraft accusation related violence.

Community celebrates ceremony to publicly reject sorcery and witchcraft accusations.

Last weekend, church and community leaders organised a meeting with locals from the Hewa language area, in a remote part of Enga province, with the intention to stop the killing of those accused of sorcery and witchcraft. A group of nine people from a settlement near Wanakipa decided to celebrate the meeting after four women had been accused of practising sorcery. The witch finder who identified the women as being witches, retracted her accusations and admitted she was pressured to make the allegations.

Anton Lutz, a Lutheran missionary who works against sorcery and witchcraft related violence in the province, was hopeful that the meeting will help people to realise that killing suspected witches is harmful for the whole community and definitely not the way to go. The organisers hoped that the talks would culminate in a ceremony where some arrows would be exchanged: the arrows used to kill alleged witches would be broken and some other arrows used for hunting would be given as a present.

The witch finder who accused the four women of practising sorcery agreed to be filmed retracting the accusation and allowed for the footage to be used at the community forum.

The response of the police in Enga was especially remarkable. Police Commander George Kakas, welcomed the organisation of the meeting and hired a plane to take a team of missionaries, community leaders and police officers to the remote area. He sent his deputy Epenes Nili to talk to the people and tell them about the law regarding sorcery. The collaboration between the different parties culminated in a very successful ceremony where the local community publicly rejected further accusations of sorcery.

Mr. Anton Lutz has provided a full report of the intervention. You can read it here:  SANGUMA IN THE HEWA