Haiti lynch mobs murder 45 accused of spreading cholera with sorcery

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:23 PM on 23rd December 2010

Lynch mobs have murdered 45 people in Haiti after accusing them of spreading cholera by using sorcery.

Most of the victims have been hacked to death with machetes or stoned in the streets before their killers set fire to their corpses.

The savage scenes have occurred across the earthquake-ravaged island over the last week.

Prosecutor Kesner Numa said that the dead were accused of spreading the disease in regions which had been unaffected by the outbreak to date.

'We have had cases every day since last week,' he said 'People really believe that witches are taking advantage of the cholera epidemic to kill.'

Forty of the murders have been in the Grand Anse region, in the far south-west of Haiti.

While 2,500 people had died across the island since cholera broke out in mid-October, the area had been the least affected to date.

Police say many communities are refusing to co-operate with investigations.

Voodoo is widespread in Haiti with at least half of the population practicing the religion in some form.

But the island's catastrophic misfortunes over the last 12 months have caused a backlash against its practitioners.

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