Dorothee
Germany
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Another reupload: The following article is about one thing Sierra Leone and Nigeria – as well as Congo, Tanzania, Malawi and some other LDCs – have in common:”In Nigeria some extremely dangerous Christian sects have been developing during the last few years. They gain more and more power and thus nearly every Nigerian – especially from urban areas – believes in their strange stories about witchcraft and how especially children and babies “are very likely to become diabolical and evil”. Sam Ikpe-Itauma is one of the few people in this area who does not believe what the evangelical “prophets” are preaching. He opened his house to a few children who got chased away from home, because they were accused of being witches. Now he tries his best to look after 131 children. The survival of each of them is a miracle to me. I read that some parents even tried to kill their “so evil witch-” children by pouring acid in their throats, by burrying them alive, by tying them to some tree in the wild, by drawing one or more nails through the son’s or daughter’s head or – in the case of a toddler I read about – by just abandoning them without food or water. Plus they usually did so after some “priest” practiced his own form of “exorcism” on them, by starving them or by doing other things that would weaken these mentally and physically still developing children. As I said these 131 didn’t just live – which would have been amazing enough -, but they also got help and found a new home – which is very unusual in a country where many people consider it as something that goes without saying that little babies can be possesed by the devil and commit sins like murder. “http://www.hopeislife.org/archives/100.html” belongs to an organisation that supports Sam Ikpe-Itauma and shows people how to get involved. Two further websites that aren’t less usefull are “http://www.steppingstonesnigeria.org/donate.html” and “http://www.africa-outreach.org/”. Some say that we shouldn’t help countries like Nigeria, but boycott them as a punishment. However I think this would make everything worse, wouldn’t it? After all these “Christians” blame every single famine, disease etc. on children and thus they won’t even understand when we boycott them.”
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