These are headlines that can be straight from old times of ages gone by. They are not, however. They are today. Now. Right now.
The UK DAILY MAIL is running a big spread in their latest Britwrappers telling the hidden story of the ‘demons’ in the Congo children.. 50,000 at least who are ‘exorcised’ in a brutal way to ‘beat the devil’ from their human bodies.
Nikki Fagge writes in more detail:
Squeezing a toddler’s eyeballs and shoving his thumb into her tiny nose a Catholic priest purges a child of the devil, one of many exorcisms he carries out every day.
Flicked with holy water, her face smeared with olive oil and poked violently in the stomach, two-and-a-half-year old Angel bursts into tears as she is rid of the evil spirits that lurk within her.
The child wriggles to free herself but her mother holds on firmly, insistent that she endures the exorcism to protect her from the sorcery that many in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) believe controls their lives.
And more//
Angel and Grace, an 11-month-old baby exorcised the same day, have been ‘saved’ by the ceremony, the devil banished, and for now they remain safe in their homes.
But tens of thousands of other children in this troubled central African country have been branded ‘child’ witches and flung out onto the streets by their families into a life of destitution, violence and abuse.
MailOnline ventured into the frightening world of the occult in this African heartland, famously described as the ‘heart of darkness’, as part of series examining the challenges facing the United Nations trying to help these children.
In the capital Kinshasa, at the Gallicane Catholic Church, Father Alexis Katziota Mungala talks almost matter of factly of his work releasing thousands of children from the devil.
Exorcism is a daily ritual he performs in his church.
‘These witches they eat human flesh, they drink human blood,’ Father Alexis told MailOnline.
The ‘rest of the story’ is told in more detail, and large photographs of the ‘demon children’ are showcased–children who look quite fine, quite beautiful, and quite normal. Normal except for a culture and parents who believe that demons must be ‘beat’ out of them.
