DAKAR - Lynch mobs in Senegal have burned and beaten to death
suspected sorcerers with powers to cause a man's penis to vanish or
shrink with a mere handshake, newspapers reported.
Dakar dailies on Friday published pictures of suspected "genital
thieves" killed in the latest wave of a recurrent problem across West
Africa.
"Have we lost our common sense," read a headline on the front-page
of Le Matin beneath a picture of a man killed by angry crowds in the
capital.
The official daily Le Soleil reported that five people from Niger had
been killed by mobs in southern Casamance province.
Scores of people, mostly African foreigners, have died in similar bouts
of hysteria in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegal itself over the past
year.
Police in West African cities have tried to assure the public that
allegations of vanishing penises are baseless and often started by
thieves who profit from the ensuing panic.