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witchcraftlatest news & developments
Practitioners will have to pay registration fees to the council every year and show proof of being appropriately trained for the type of service they offer. (Photo supplied)

By 2025, sangomas will have to be registered to practise

The health department says new regulations likely to come into force early next year are a step towards getting Western and traditional medicine to work together

A 19th-century image of an indentured labourer’s dance troupe in Natal. (Image courtesy of Campbell Collections, Killie Campbell Africana Library, UKZN)

‘The Making of Mount Edgecombe’: A view of history from below

Indian indentured labourers’ lives are celebrated in a new book, Sugar Mill Barracks: The Making of Mount Edgecombe

(Illustration: Adam Carniege)

Feminism 101: Pussies are not for grabbing

It’s been 30 years since I found my voice – now ‘nasty’ women around the world are fighting back

Remembering the witches of the past ensures that heteropatriarchal nationalism cannot continue to erase and subjugate women. (Google)

The witch is she who dares to act alone

Women have to unite in a country and parts of the world where the ultimate subjugation is death

President Jacob Zuma and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi met in Tripoli in May 2011. Inexplicably

What’s behind children being cast as witches in Nigeria

Children labelled as witches in Nigeria are often abandoned, shunned by society and turfed out into the streets.

The Frenchman is keen to move to Barcelona — the Spanish transfer window does not shut till the end of the month. (Reuters/Carl Recine)

‘Bad’ children condemned as witches

Youngsters in Tanzania who are suffering from epilepsy or who are just ‘naughty’ face exorcisms, beatings and even death.

Two more women suspected of witchcraft have been killed in Tanzania.

Two more suspected ‘witches’ hacked to death in Tanzania

Two women had their throats slit and were hacked on suspicion of being witches, a week after seven people were burned to death on the same suspicion.

According to data compiled by the Malawi Network of Older Persons Organisations (Manepo), 11 elderly people were killed over witchcraft accusations in the first four months of 2026 alone.

Seven accused of witchcraft burned alive in Tanzania

Police in Tanzania say 23 people were arrested in connection with the crime of seven people, accused of witchcraft, have been burned alive.

Should City fail to win at Old Trafford, Liverpool — historically United’s fiercest rivals — will be just three games away from a first league title in 29 years. (Getty Images)

Presidency rejects claims of Zuma’s apartheid witchcraft

A media report that President Jacob Zuma practised witchcraft during apartheid was "ridiculous and misleading", says the presidency.

President Jacob Zuma.

By the gods, what now?

After President Jacob Zuma called on his ancestors to help secure his next term, Mpho Moshe Matheolane wonders how the gods would react to this.

Nomasonto Mazibuko

Albinos’ lonely call for recognition

Though defined as disabled, the state does not accord a albinos any rights and South Africans "are as deaf as the ground", activists say.

Suffer the little children

Suffer the little children

Humanist Leo Igwe has taken on popular pastor Helen Ukpabio over the hunting of "child witches" in Nigeria.

Tanzania witchcraft protest turns violent, four killed

Four people have been killed in Tanzania in clashes between police and thousands of demonstrators angry at a spate of alleged witchcraft killings.

Nothing magical about witchcraft, says Indian state

Chanting to cure snakebites and claiming to be a reincarnated spouse to obtain sex could be banned by an Indian state to protect the vulnerable.

Malawi’s ‘witches’ challenge colonial-era sorcery law

When Kanthukako Supaunyolo’s grandson woke up in the night with a nosebleed, his parents were enraged by what they saw as a bad omen.

Malawi rights group pays fines to free elderly ‘witches’

A Malawian rights group said it had paid fines to secure the release of three elderly women sent to prison for witchcraft.

Nigerian children branded as witches in deadly purge

Jeremiah (10) stares blankly at a window, tears rolling down his scarred cheeks, recounting how his father doused him with petrol and set him ablaze.

Cope: ‘Sexwale a destitute ANC follower’

ANC member Tokyo Sexwale is a ”destitute follower of the ANC” and a ”defeated man”, Cope women’s forum in the Eastern Cape said on Tuesday.