Category: Sita Kisanga

London 2005. A child is ‘tried’ for witchcraft. How many more?

Convinced that the eight-year-old girl in her house was a witch, Sita Kisanga aided and abetted her abuse. Severin Carrell reports An Angolan woman convicted of ritualistically beating and abusing an eight-year-old girl has spoken out about her extraordinary belief that the child was practising African witchcraft. Sita Kisanga was one of three people found guilty of child abuse at the Old Bailey on Friday, in an alarming case that has fuelled fears of an epidemic of cruelty within tiny churches that mix traditional West African spiritual beliefs with evangelical Christianity. Kisanga, from Hackney, east London, was convicted along with

Woman convicted of abusing ‘witch’ child

London – An African woman convicted in Britain of child cruelty involving a schoolgirl beaten with a high-heeled shoe, insisted the victim was a witch. Sita Kisanga, 35, and her brother Sebastian Pinto were found guilty on Friday by London’s Old Bailey Court of aiding and abetting abuse committed by the eight-year-old’s aunt after the women became convinced the girl was involved in witchcraft. “I know it is not easy for people to believe but those people with the spiritual belief will know what I’m saying is true,” Kisanga told the BBC in an interview aired on Saturday. After their

Girl breaks down during witch trial

London – A 10-year-old girl who says she was starved, beaten, cut and almost drowned in the River Thames because her aunt and three friends believed she was a witch brought their trial to a halt on Thursday when she broke down in tears. The girl, who cannot be identified because of her age, was seated in another room but could be heard sobbing soon after jurors began watching a video of her being interviewed by police in 2003. Judge Christopher Moss ordered officials to stop the video and sever the video link between the Old Bailey courtroom and the

Girl, 8, ‘was tortured for being witch’

A girl aged 8 was stuffed into a bag after being denounced as a witch and was moments from being drowned in a canal by her family, a court was told yesterday. She had been starved, beaten, cut with a knife and had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes in the plot to kill her, it was said. The girl had been accused of being a witch by a boy, also 8, who was a member of her extended family in Hackney, East London. Her ordeal went unnoticed by teachers, social workers and neighbours for 15 months, during which the