Hunting down those who kill for human body parts

As scores of families are shocked by murders linked to alleged magical rituals in Sierra Leone, the BBC is investigating the people behind the human body part trade that has come to Africa.

Warning: This article contains details that some readers may find disturbing.

The mother of an 11-year-old boy who was murdered under suspected black magic four years ago is heartbroken that no one has yet been brought to justice for his death.

“Today I am in pain. They killed my baby and now there is just silence,” Salai Kalokoh told BBC Africa Eye, describing how her son Papayo had parts of his body removed, including his vital organs, eyes and an arm.

He went to the market to sell fish and never came back.

His family searched for him for two weeks – and his mutilated body was eventually found at the bottom of a well.

“We always tell our children to be careful. If you’re selling, don’t go to a corner or take gifts from strangers. This happens often in this country,” Ms Kalokoh said.

This murder in my hometown of Makeni in central Sierra Leone has troubled me because we often hear reports of murders involving black magic, also known as juju, that are never followed up by authorities or properly investigated.

In Papayo’s case, police did not even confirm that it was a “ritual murder” – when a person is murdered so that their body parts can be used in so-called magical rituals by illegal juju practitioners.

They promise things like prosperity and power to customers who pay large sums of money in the mistaken belief that human body parts can make such charms more powerful.

But authorities are desperately short of resources – there is only one pathologist in a country of 8.9 million – making it often impossible to gather the evidence needed to catch the culprits.

In Sierra Leone, even among many police officers, belief in witchcraft is so strong that there is often a fear of pursuing cases – and most remain unsolved.

But I wanted to know more about this underground trade in human body parts that leaves tragedy in its wake.

Our BBC Africa Eye team managed to find two men who claimed they were Juju practitioners and offered to obtain body parts for ritual purposes.

Both said they were part of much larger networks – and one claimed to have powerful clients throughout West Africa. The BBC was unable to confirm these claims.

A member of our team secretly used the name Osman to pose as a politician who wanted to gain power through human sacrifice.

We first traveled to a remote area of ​​the Kambia district, near the Guinean border in the north of the country, to meet the Juju man in his secret temple – an area of ​​dense bush where he used to consult his clients.

Calling himself Kanu, he wore a ceremonial red mask covering his entire face to conceal his identity and claimed his political affiliations.

He claimed, “I was working with some big, big politicians in Guinea, Senegal and Nigeria. We have a team. Sometimes at election time, at night, this place is packed with people.”

Election season is considered by some to be a particularly dangerous time with parents warned to take special care of their children due to the increased risk of kidnapping.

On the second visit, Kanu became more convinced and showed Osman what he said was proof of his trade – a human skull.

“You see it? It belongs to someone. I dried it for them. It’s a woman’s skull. I’m hoping that person will pick it up today or tomorrow.”

He also pointed to a pit behind his temple: “This is where we hang human organs. We slaughter here, and the blood goes there… Even the big leaders, when they want power, come here. I give them what they want.”

When Osman specified that he wanted a woman’s organs for use in the ritual, Kanu said: “A woman is worth 70 million leones (£2,500; $3,000).”

Concerned about not putting anyone at risk, we did not meet Kanu again. He might have been a scammer, but we handed over our evidence to the local police for further investigation.

Such Juju men sometimes refer to themselves as herbalists, the name given to practitioners who use traditional medicine, often made from local plants, to treat common ailments.

World Health Organization data shows that Sierra Leone – which suffered a brutal civil war in the 1990s and was the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic a decade ago – will have about 1,000 registered doctors in 2022, compared with an estimated 45,000 traditional healers.

Most people in the West African nation trust these healers, who also help with mental health issues and treat their patients in temples where culturally there is an element of mysticism and spirituality attached to their craft and the treatments they sell.

Sheku Taravalli, chairman of the Sierra Leone Council of Traditional Healers, is adamant that “devils” like Kanu are giving juju male practitioners a bad name.

“We are trying very hard to clean up our image. The average person doesn’t understand, so they put us (all) in the category of bad herbivores. One rotting fish can destroy a school of fish… We are healers, we are not killers,” he told BBC Africa Eye.

Mr. Taravalli is actually trying to work with the government and another NGO to open a traditional medicine clinic to treat patients.

He believed that people lusting for power and money were often behind ritual killings.

“When someone wants to become a leader… they remove human organs. They use them as sacrifices. Burn people, use their ashes for power. Use their oil for power.”

In Sierra Leone, where most people describe themselves as Muslim or Christian, the number of ritual killings is not known.

“In most African countries, ritual killings are not officially recorded as a separate or sub-category of murder,” Emmanuel Sarpong Owusu, a lecturer at Britain’s Arden University, told the BBC.

“Some are misclassified or misdiagnosed as accidents, deaths from wild animal attacks, suicides, natural deaths… Most of the culprits – possibly 90% – are not caught.”

When we discovered another suspected supplier of body parts, he was based in a suburb of the capital, Freetown, called Waterloo, which is notorious for drug abuse and other crimes.

“I am not alone, there are more than 250 herbal experts working under my banner,” the man calling himself Idara told Usman, who was again incognito and wearing a hidden camera.

“There is no human part we don’t work with. Once we ask for a specific body part, they bring it. We share the work,” Idara said.

He described how some of his colleagues were good at catching people – and recounted a voice message from one of them on Osman’s second visit, who claimed they were prepared to go out every night in search of a victim.

Usman told them not to proceed yet, but when he later received a call from Idara claiming that his team had identified a victim, we contacted the Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Sama.

He decided to conduct a raid – but said his officers would not do so without the involvement of Mr Taravalli, who often assists the police in such operations.

“When we received intelligence that a particularly dangerous witch doctor was operating a temple, we would work with traditional healers,” said Assistant Superintendent Aliu Jallow, an officer in charge of the raid.

He expressed the superstitions of some officers about dealing with evil herbivores: “I will not go and inflame situations. I know they have powers of their own that are beyond my knowledge.”

After Idara was captured – found hiding on the terrace with a knife – Mr Taravalli began searching the property for evidence, saying there were human bones, human hair and piles of what looked like graveyard dirt.

This was enough for police to arrest Idara and two others, who were charged in June with practicing witchcraft as well as being in possession of traditional weapons used in ritual killings. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was bailed pending further investigation.

Since we never heard back from the police in Kambia about Kanu, I tried calling him directly to challenge him about the allegations, but could not reach him.

There are occasions when even high-profile cases seem to be postponed. Two years earlier, a university lecturer in Freetown had gone missing and his body was later found buried in an herbalist’s temple in Waterloo.

The case was referred to the High Court to be heard by a magistrate in August 2023, but two sources told the BBC it has not yet been dealt with and those detained by police have been released on bail.

My family is facing similar obstacles in getting justice. In May, during our BBC investigation, my 28-year-old cousin Fatmata Conteh was murdered in Makeni.

A hairdresser and mother of two, her body was found dumped on the roadside the day after her birthday, where a resident told the BBC that two other bodies had been found in recent weeks.

Several of his front teeth were missing, leading the community to believe that it was a ritual murder.

“She was a woman who never caused harm. She was very peaceful and hard-working,” said one mourner, as family, friends and colleagues gathered for a large funeral at her local mosque.

We will never know the real motive for Fatmata’s murder. The family paid for his body to be taken to Freetown for an autopsy – something the authorities could not do – but the post-mortem was inconclusive and no arrests have yet been made.

As in the case of Papayo’s mother, the lack of closure by police and a feeling of abandonment foster fear and terror in poor communities like Makeni.

Additional reporting by Chris Alcock and Luis Barucho