Three orphans have narrated how they were abused and flogged with hot machetes after being branded witches by their HIV positive grandmother in River States.
The sisters, aged three, five and 13 years respectively, said they were coerced to confess to being witches.
According to eldest sister,
“We are not witches, our grandmother made us to confess what we are not. We dropped out of school in 2016 when our mother died; we also lost our father in 2014.
“We do not belong to any witchcraft world. We are normal children; she made us sell sachet water before we can eat once a day.
“She is our grandmother, she normally brings people like Uncle Aniekan to punish us with hot machete and he flogged us with it after it had been heated up in fire. They will use it to flog us to confess that we were responsible for her sickness.”
When the abuse came to light the Child Protection Network and Basic Rights Counsel Initiative took up the case and got the grandmother arrested. She was, however, released on bail because of her illness.
Barr. James Ibor, the Principal Counsel to BRCI, described the grandmother as a ‘walking corpse’.
He said,
“The old woman in question has a terminal illness, for which she has refused to continue taking drugs as prescribed and recommended, but she decided to blame her condition on the children.
“She was aware of her status and was placed on anti-retroviral drugs, but she stopped taking them and decided to say her children were sucking her blood.”
The Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Cross River Command, ASP Irene Ugbo, confirmed the incident.
