Arthur Peter Mutharika,
said the reports were ‘distressing and agonising’ (Picture: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty
Images)
pull out of Malawi after mob violence saw at least five people killed. The scare triggered
violence in the region which led the UN to pull staff
from two districts in the south of the country. At least five people
have been killed in the area since mid-September by lynch mobs accusing them of
vampirism. Mobs searching for vampires have been
mounting road blocks in the district, raising security concerns.
‘These districts have severely been affected by the ongoing stories of blood sucking and
possible existence of vampires,’ the UN Department
on Safety and Security (UNDSS) said in a security report on the Phalombe and Mulanje
districts.
The Acting UN Resident Coordinator,
Florence Rolle, said: ‘Some UN staff have relocated while others are still in the districts
depending on locations of their operations. ‘UNDSS is
continuing to monitor the situation closely to ensure all affected UN staff are back in the
field
as soon as possible. Rolle did not say how many workers had been
relocated.
rural
Malawi (Picture: Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images)
said the reports were ‘distressing and agonising’. His
office said: ‘This development has been of grave concern to the President and the entire
Government.’ The UNDSS report said the
vampirism
rumours appear to have originated in neighbouring Mozambique, although it was not clear
what had sparked them. It recommended the
‘temporary suspension of U.N. activities in the area until the situation is normalised. It said
some NGOs had pulled personnel from the districts and temporarily
suspended their programmes but did not name the
organisations. Belief in witchcraft is widespread in rural Malawi, one of the world’s poorest
countries, where many aid agencies and NGOs
work. A spate of vigilante violence linked to vampire rumours also erupted in 2002.
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