A rare animal, a jaguar cub was stolen from the Bloemfontein Zoo and allegedly used for muti, Free State police said.
Muti is a term for “traditional medicine” or witchcraft in Southern Africa as far north as Lake Tanganyika. The word is used in most indigenous African languages, as well as in South African English and Afrikaans.
Witchdoctors are paying as little as R10 000 for a human body brought to them to use in muti. Discovering the price for the illicit trade in bodyparts in 2010 has been a major breakthrough into the study of the clandestine practice.
The information emerged during the second leg of research into trafficking of human body parts, undertaken by Mozambique’s Human Rights League, supported by Childline in South Africa.
League project manager Simon Fellows called it the most comprehensive study into the trafficking of human body parts.
Muti also uses animal parts if human parts are not available. White human parts fetch much higher prices.
“You just get the R10 000 for coming with a [black] person, the muti killer reported,” said Fellows. It was reported that one person’s eyes, nipples, clitoris and tongue had been cut off for the mentioned amount.
But Fellows said the revelation was just the tip of the iceberg. In the first report, researchers received 31 people with first-hand accounts of trafficking for body parts. The first project only looked at areas in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Free State. The new project looks at the entire country.
Earlier, the Saturday Star reported that one in five people in South Africa’s rural areas had had first-hand experience of a human body part being trafficked after a muti killing. Almost all rural blacks use animals for muti.
According to Human Rights League’s research, of the body parts mentioned in their accounts male genitals, breasts, hearts, fingers and tongues were the most commonly listed.
A veil of secrecy shrouds the industry because muti killings are still perceived as a taboo subject.
“I can confirm the theft of a four-month-old baby jaguar at the zoo and the value is estimated at around R20,000,” spokesman Captain Chaka Marope said.
“The baby jaguar was stolen two weeks ago and traces on the premises indicated that it might have been killed there and taken away. According to information, it is suspected that they might have used it for muti purposes.”
He said investigations continued and no arrests had yet been made.
