Witch hunting didn’t end in the Middle Ages. Along Kenya’s Kilifi coast, elderly people are being accused of witchcraft, attacked and killed. At least one person a week is targeted and left unable to return to their own land. One man who did survive recently, 74-year-old Tambala Jefwa, lost an eye and is now covered in scars. Something terrifying seems to have escaped the pages of the history books and is stalking the present.
Belief in witchcraft remains common in parts of Africa and, indeed, around the world. Recent events in Kenya are by no means isolated: in the early 2020s, the Democratic Republic of Congo saw an alarming surge in murders of alleged witches, and a 2023 report found that more than 1,500 people had been killed in witch hunts in Indian over an 11 year period. Just last May, a woman in the north-eastern city of Gumla was brutally executed with an axe by vigilante witch-finders.
Just as witches were a diverse group, so were their accusers
At times, genuine terror can lead to extreme violence.
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