Case file · Witch trials
Witch killings in Sukumaland
In north-western Tanzania hundreds of older women accused of witchcraft, often singled out by their red eyes from years of cooking over smoky fires, were killed each year; a 2005 study linked the killings to drought and crop failure.
2005 CE · -3.66, 33.42 · status: official
The account
Economist Edward Miguel found that in Meatu district witch murders doubled in years of extreme rainfall, when households were poorest. Tanzanian police estimated thousands of such killings from the 1960s on. Campaigners pushed for cleaner cooking stoves as well as police action.
The sceptical view
The pattern fits scapegoating under economic stress rather than anything supernatural.