Mob accused of ‘vampirisim’

LILONGWE: Police in Malawi said they arrested 140 suspected members of vigilante mobs that have targeted people accused of vampirism, clamping down after a number of attacks have killed at least nine people.

The lynch mob attacks began in mid-September in four districts in souther n Malawi, where belief in witchcraft is widespread.

This week they spread to Blantyre, the country’s second-biggest city, where mobs torched one person and stoned another to death on Wednesday.

“We have so far arrested 140 people we suspect are behind the mob killings in Blantyre and other districts. The investigations are still going on,” Lexon Kachama, inspector general of Malawi Police, told reporters.

Earlier this month the UN pulled staff out of two areas in southern Malawi.