Congo's 'child witches' are exorcised to have the devil beaten out of them | Daily Mail Online

'We are Catholic missionaries so it is our duty to carry out exorcisms,,,.  We have a way to shoo away the sorcery, to chase away the demons.'

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Squeezing a toddler’s eyeballs and shoving his thumb into her tiny nose a Catholic priest purges a child of the devil, one of many exorcisms he carries out every day.

Flicked with holy water, her face smeared with olive oil and poked violently in the stomach, two-and-a-half-year old Angel bursts into tears as she is rid of the evil spirits that lurk within her.

The child wriggles to free herself but her mother holds on firmly, insistent that she endures the exorcism to protect her from the sorcery that many in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) believe controls their lives.

Angel and Grace, an 11-month-old baby exorcised the same day, have been ‘saved’ by the ceremony, the devil banished, and for now they remain safe in their homes.

But tens of thousands of other children in this troubled central African country have been branded ‘child’ witches and flung out onto the streets by their families into a life of destitution, violence and abuse.

MailOnline ventured into the frightening world of the occult in this African heartland, famously described as the ‘heart of darkness’, as part of series examining the challenges facing the United Nations trying to help these children. 

In the capital Kinshasa, at the Gallicane Catholic Church, Father Alexis Katziota Mungala talks almost matter of factly of his work releasing thousands of children from the devil.

Exorcism is a daily ritual he performs in his church.

‘These witches they eat human flesh, they drink human blood,’ Father Alexis told MailOnline.

‘It is the work of the devil. Witchcraft kills the love within the child. It fills them with hate, it makes them eat their father, fight with their brother.

‘Witchcraft is part of our tradition; it is part of Congolese culture.

‘Children can become infected with sorcery but we carry out exorcisms to help children find their families again.’

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‘Once accused of witchcraft, children are stigmatized and discriminated against for life. Children accused of witchcraft may be killed, although more often they are abandoned by their parents and live on the streets.’

Deeply suspicious and steeped in mysticism the existence of child-witchcraft is deep-rooted in Congolese culture.

‘Child witchcraft is part of our tradition,’ Etienne Maleke, who has worked with Kinshasa’s street children for over 20 years, told MailOnline.

‘All of the boys here at the shelter have been accused of being witches.’

But the collapse of the economy in the 1990s following mass lootings by the unpaid army and the following chaos of two devastating wars turned this phenomenon into an epidemic.

Witchcraft was often used to simply rid a household of an unwanted mouth to feed.

Congo's 'child witches' are exorcised to have the devil beaten out of them | Daily Mail Online