BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY
Cannibal Christians kill and eat two men in Central African Republic
- WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
- Mad Dog is pictured cutting meat from a body and licking a bloodied knife
- Two Muslims were lynched and burned in Bangui in a revenge attack
- Mad Dog – real name Ouandja Magloire – didn’t take part in the killings
- He turned up afterwards and carried out his grisly act in front of a crowd
- Sectarian violence has been rife recently in the Central African Republic
- Catherine Samba-Panza, former Bangui mayor, has been elected president
- She used her first speech to ask Muslims and Christians to stop fighting
- EU has agreed a joint mission to send up to 1,000 troops to the country
By TED THORNHILL and CHRIS PLEASANCE
Shocking photographs have emerged of a cannibal by the name of Mad Dog eating the flesh of a lynched Muslim man for the second time in as many weeks.
In one, ‘Mad Dog’ – real name Ouandja Magloire – cuts a portion of meat from the body of a murdered Muslim lying burning on a roundabout in the capital of the Central African Republic, with the body of another a few yards away.
Another photograph shows him licking a bloodied knife as he stands over a body, wearing the same T-shirt he was pictured in during the previous act of cannibalism.
A man who goes by the name of Mad Dog cuts off a portion of a burning body to eat, as the bodies of two lynched Muslim men are burned in a street in Bangui, Central African Republic
‘Mad Dog’ licks blood off a knife, as a crowd prepares to burn the body of a lynched Muslim man in Bangui
The horrific images were taken in Bangui on Sunday.
According to The Associated Press, the men were killed by residents of the Sango neighbourhood in revenge for the lynching of a taxi driver from Sango a day earlier.
Two other Muslim passers-by escaped to the protection of French and African peacekeeping forces.
The agency understands that Magloire didn’t take part in the killings, but turned up in the aftermath.
According to its source, he is the only person in the Central African Republic known to be carrying out acts of cannibalism.
Meanwhile Catherine Samba-Panza, 59, was elected mayor of the Central African Republic and used her first speech to appeal to both Christians and Muslims to stop the fighting.
Speaking to the Christian self-defence militia known as ‘anti-balaka’ (anti-machete), Samba-Panza said: ‘Show your support for my nomination by giving the strong signal of laying down your weapons.
She issued a similar appeal to the members of mostly Muslim rebel group Seleka, telling them: ‘Stop the suffering of the people.
‘Starting today, I am the president of all Central Africans, without exclusion.
Men carry the body of a lynched Muslim man through a street in Bangui, Central African Republic, on Sunday
A French soldier looks on as the body of one of the lynched Muslim men burns
‘The top priority is to stop people’s suffering, to restore security and the authority of the state across the country.’
Samba-Panza, who is the former mayor Bangui – where Mad Dog’s attacks have taken place – is a Christian but did not campaign on religious grounds.
In another development the European Union today agreed to send up to 1,000 troops to the region to help restore order.
The mission, which will deploy in and around the capital and last up to six months, is expected to involve a force numbering between 400 and 1,000.
The troops will help back 1,600 French soldiers and the African Union’s MISCA force, which currently has 4,400 troops on the ground.
International donors also pledged $496 million (£302 million) in aid to the country this year.
Earlier in the month horrific footage emerged from Bangui of Magloire eating the leg of a Muslim who, according to the BBC, was hauled from a bus, battered and then stabbed before being set on fire.
Horrific: Ouandja Magloire – who also calls himself ‘Mad Dog’ – is seen eating the leg of a Muslim slaughtered by a rampaging Christian mob in the Central African Republic
Magloire said that his action was revenge for the murders of his pregnant wife, his sister-in-law and her baby
Bloody: The charred and dismembered body is dragged through the streets with Magloire at the head of the mob
Killed: The body is dragged through the dusty streets by the cheering crowd
In the aftermath of the incident, Magloire grabbed hold of his leg and then began to devour it.
Magloire told a BBC reporter at the time that his action was revenge for the murders of his pregnant wife, his sister-in-law and her baby.
He claimed that Muslims were responsible and he was angry with them.
‘They broke down the door and cut my baby in half. I promised I would get my revenge,’ he said.
‘Mad Dog’ spotted his victim on a minibus and followed him after deciding he looked Muslim.
He gathered a crowd of about 20 Christian youths who forced the bus driver to stop and dragged him from the bus.
Without emotion he told the BBC: ‘I poured petrol over him. I burned him. I ate his leg, right down the white bone.’
Witnesses did not intervene but recorded the footage on mobile phones, including the act of cannibalism.
A video shows his cheeks bulging as he consumes the flesh.
Witness Jean-Sylvestre Tchya told news agency AFP: ‘One of the individuals took hold of an arm and went and bought some bread and starting chewing on the flesh, along with his bread.
‘The scene made many people vomit, and some cried out in horror.’
Another witness, Alain Gbabobou, said he watched a man wrap the head up and proclaim that he would ‘feast on it’.
Violence: People throw stones at a car transporting two children of an ex-Seleka colonel at the ‘UN crossroad’ on Sunday in Bangui
Men brandish machets and knives to threaten Muslim people in Bangui
According to The Sunday Telegraph, this may not have been an isolated incident, with a source speaking of more than one person being eaten.
An aid worker told the paper: ‘They were taking machetes to people and burning the bodies and eating them.’
Samba-Panza’s election comes 10 months after the Seleka rebels overthrew the country’s government and installed their leader, Michel Djotodia, as the majority-Christian country’s first Muslim president.
But Djotodia proved powerless to control his fighters, and many went on a rampage of killing, rape and looting targeting the Christian majority.
Some Christian communities responded by forming self-defence militias and attacking Muslims. Both sides are accused by rights watchdogs of major abuses, and the United Nations has warned of a potential inter-religious genocide.
Djotodia stood down under international pressure on January 10.
Shocking: A man ate the leg of a Muslim in the Central African Republic’s capital, Bengui (pictured), in revenge for the murders of his pregnant wife, his sister-in-law and her baby
So far it has claimed around 1,000 lives, with the reports of cannibalism bringing to mind the macabre tales associated with Jean Bedel Bokassa, who ruled the CAR with an iron fist between 1966 and 1979.
He was regarded by many as a brutal dictator and was accused of eating human flesh, incorporating it in meals for visiting officials and feeding slain opponents to animals.
He died in 1996 and received a posthumous pardon in 2010.
Some Christian fighters believe that human flesh makes them invincible and put chunks inside amulets that they wear.
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