Women Killed as ‘Witches,’ in Papua New Guinea, in 2013

Uncredited/Post Courier, via Associated Press — Bystanders, including children, watching as a woman accused of witchcraft is burned alive in Papua New Guinea, earlier this month.

By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW, IHT

“They’re going to cook the sanguma,” or witchcraft, “mama!”

This terrifying cry by Papua New Guinean children opens “It’s 2013, and They’re Burning ‘Witches,’” a long and eloquent report in the Global Mail, an Australia-based online news site.

It was published last week before news shot around the world on Tuesday that the police in Papua New Guinea, in another case, had charged two people with torturing and killing a 20-year-old mother, Kepari Leniata, whom they accused of being a witch. Ms. Leniata was “stripped, tortured with a hot iron rod, doused in gasoline and set alight on a pile of car tires and trash” earlier this month in front of a crowd of hundreds of people, including young children, The Associated Press reported.

Why?

(More here.)