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- author, Tyson Conteh
- Author title, BBC Eye Africa
Many families in Sierra Leone have been traumatized by murders apparently linked to alleged magical rituals. BBC Africa Eye is investigating those responsible for human organ trafficking.
Warning: This article contains details that some readers may find disturbing.
The mother of an 11-year-old boy who was killed four years ago in an alleged black magic ritual is shocked that no one has been brought to justice for his death.
“Today I feel pain. They killed my son and now there is only silence,” Salai Kalokoh told BBC Africa Eye, explaining that her son Babayo was found with parts of his body amputated, including his vital organs, eyes and arm.
He went out to sell fish at the market and never came back.
His family searched for him for two weeks, and finally found his mutilated body at the bottom of the well.
“We always tell our children to be careful. If you are selling, do not go to a corner or accept gifts from strangers. This happens a lot in this country,” Kalokoh said.
This murder that took place in my hometown of Makeni in central Sierra Leone haunted me, as we often hear reports of murders linked to black magic, also known as juju, that were not properly investigated by the authorities.
In Babayo’s case, the police did not even confirm that it was a “ritual murder,” that is, when someone is killed so that parts of their body can be used in supposed magic rituals by illegal magic practitioners.
They promise things like prosperity and power to paying customers, in the mistaken belief that parts of the human body can operate such amulets.
Because the authorities have so few resources (there is only one pathologist in a country of 8.9 million people), it is often impossible to collect the evidence needed to track down the perpetrators.
Belief in witchcraft is also so ingrained in Sierra Leone, even among many police officers, that there is often a fear of going ahead with investigations, most of which remain unsolved.
I wanted to know more about this secret trade in human body parts that has a tragic impact.
Our team at BBC Africa Eye managed to find two people who claimed to be witchcraft practitioners and offered to obtain human parts for rituals.
Both claimed to be part of much larger networks, with one boasting a powerful clientele throughout West Africa. The BBC was unable to verify these allegations.
Power in exchange for sacrifices
One of our team members went undercover, using the name Osman, to pretend to be a politician seeking power through human sacrifice.
We first traveled to a remote part of the Kambia region, in the north of the country, near the border with Guinea, to meet the juju man in his secret refuge, a lush green area where he receives consultations from his clients.
He called himself Kanu, wore a ceremonial red mask that covered his entire face to conceal his identity, and bragged about his political connections.
“I have worked with very important politicians in Guinea, Senegal and Nigeria. We have our own team. Sometimes, during elections, at night, this place is full of people,” he said.
Some consider election season a particularly dangerous time, with parents warned to pay closer attention to their children due to the increased risk of kidnapping.
On a second visit, Kanu felt more confident and showed Usman what he believed was proof of his skill: a human skull.
“You see this? It belongs to someone. I dried it for them. It’s a woman’s skull. I hope someone picks it up today or tomorrow.”
He also pointed to a pit behind his shrine: “This is where we hang human organs. We sacrifice here, and blood flows there… Even the big leaders, when they want power, come here. I give them what they want.”
When Othman specified that he wanted to use the woman’s limbs in a ritual, Kanu got straight to the point: “The price of the woman is 70 million leones (about 3,000 US dollars).”
In an effort not to endanger anyone, we never met Kano again. It could be a scam, but we have handed our evidence over to the local police for further investigation.
These men sometimes call themselves herbalists, the name given to healers who use traditional medicine, often made from local plants, to treat common ailments.
Data from the World Health Organization shows that Sierra Leone, which suffered a brutal civil war in the 1990s and was at the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic a decade ago, had about 1,000 registered doctors in 2022, compared to a reported estimate of about 45,000 traditional healers.
Most people in this West African country rely on these healers, who also help with mental health problems and treat their patients in sanctuaries where there is an element of mysticism and spirituality culturally linked to their profession and the treatments they sell.
Sheko Tarawale, president of the Traditional Healers Council of Sierra Leone, insists that “satanic” witches like Kanu are discrediting healers.
He told BBC Africa Eye: “We are trying hard to improve our image. Ordinary people don’t understand it, so they call us (all) bad herbalists. One bad fish can destroy the whole group. We are healers, not killers.”
In fact, Trawali is trying to collaborate with the government and another NGO to open a traditional medicine clinic to treat patients.
It was believed that those behind ritual murders were often those who lusted for power and money.
“When someone wants to become a leader… he extracts parts of people. He uses them as sacrifices. He burns people, uses their ashes to gain power. He uses their oil to gain power.”
Ready to search for victims
The number of ritual killings in Sierra Leone, where most people identify as Muslims or Christians, is unknown.
“In most African countries, ritual killings are not officially registered as a separate subcategory of homicide,” Emmanuel Sarpong Owusu, a professor at Arden University in the UK, told the BBC.
“Some were misclassified or reported as accidents, deaths due to wild animal attacks, suicides, or natural deaths…and most of the perpetrators were never caught – perhaps 90%.”
When we found another alleged supplier of body parts, it was in Waterloo, a suburb of the capital, Freetown, known for drug use and other crimes.
The man calling himself Idara, who was again undercover and carrying a secret camera, told Osman: “I am not alone, I have up to 250 herbalists working under me.”
“There are no human parts that we don’t work with,” Idara said. “As soon as we ask for a certain body part, they bring it. We share the work.”
He went on to explain how some of his collaborators were good at arresting people, and on Osman’s second visit, he played a voicemail from one of them stating that they were prepared to go out every night looking for a victim.
Usman told him not to go ahead yet, but when he later received a call from management saying his team had identified the victim, we contacted Police Commissioner Ibrahim Sama.
He decided to organize a raid, but stated that his officers would not carry it out without the participation of Trawali, who usually cooperates with the police in such operations.
“When we have information about a particularly dangerous witch running a shrine, we work with traditional healers,” said Deputy Superintendent Aliyu Jallow, an officer who took part in the raid.
Gallo expressed the superstitions some clients have about dealing with corrupt herbalists: “I’m not going to sensationalize situations. I know they have powers of their own that are beyond my knowledge.”
After arresting Idara, who was found hiding on the roof with a knife in his hand, Tarrawale began searching the property for evidence of human bones, human hair and piles of what looked like cemetery soil.
This was enough for police to arrest Idara and two other men, who were charged in June with practicing witchcraft and possessing traditional weapons used in ritual killings.
They pleaded not guilty to the charges against them and were released on bail pending further investigations.
Since we have not received any response from Kambia Police regarding Kanu, I tried to contact him personally to question him directly about the allegations, but was unable to contact him.
There are times when even the most high-profile cases seem to stagnate. Two years ago, a university professor went missing in Freetown and his body was later found buried in what police said was the mausoleum of a herbalist in Waterloo.
A judge referred the case in August 2023 to the Supreme Court for trial, but two sources told the BBC that no progress had been made so far and those detained by police were released on bail.
My family faces similar obstacles to achieving justice. In May, during a BBC investigation, my cousin Fatimata Conteh, 28, was killed in Makeni.
She was a hairdresser and mother of two, and her body was dumped on the side of the road the day after her birthday, where, according to a resident, two other bodies were found in recent weeks. He was missing several of his front teeth, leading society to believe it was a ritual murder.
“She was a woman who never did harm. She was very peaceful and hardworking,” one funeral attendee said as her family, friends and colleagues gathered to bid her farewell at the local mosque.
We may never know the real reason for Fatima’s death. The family paid the costs of transporting his body to Freetown for an autopsy, something the authorities could not afford, but the autopsy was inconclusive and no arrests have been made so far.
As with Babayo’s mother, the lack of closure and feeling abandoned by the police fuels fear and terror in poor communities like Makeni’s.
Additional reporting by Chris Alcock and Luis Barrocho.
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