Case file · Witch trials
The Ralushai Commission on witch killings
In 1996 a commission led by Professor Victor Ralushai reported on hundreds of killings of alleged witches, often by burning, in South Africa's Northern Province since the mid-1980s.
1996 CE · -22.95, 30.48 · status: official
The account
Many attacks were led by youth groups in the political turmoil of the late apartheid years, and older women were the main victims. The commission recommended changing the 1957 Act to recognise that belief in witchcraft was real to the people involved.