Опубликовано:
ectarian violence in the Central African Republic has reached a new extreme with an act of cannibalism in the capital, Bangui. The BBC's Paul Wood has heard a graphic first-person account, which some might find upsetting.
The buses throwing up clouds of red clay dust had yet to rub out the ugly bloodstain in the dirt. A Muslim man had been murdered here a few days ago, by Christians. His limbs were hacked off. Then one of the crowd ate the flesh in a public demonstration of cannibalism.
We were filming nearby when a young man in a yellow T-shirt came up to talk to me.
"I am the naughty one," he said in broken French. Puzzled, I shook his hand and was trying to ease past him when I noticed the machete tucked into his skinny jeans. "I am the naughty one," he repeated.
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I ate his leg, the whole thing right down to the bone - with bread. That's why people call me Mad Dog."
Ouandja Magloire
Desecration of bodies in war
With a sickening feeling, I realised I was talking to the cannibal.
Camera phones had captured the crime. The pictures show a charred and dismembered body being dragged through the street by a screaming mob. A man held a severed leg and bit down into it.
The same, slightly built figure was standing in front of me. He was even wearing the same yellow T-shirt as in the video.
A few minutes earlier, I had spoken to a horrified witness, Ghislein Nzoto. He said it began when the Muslim man was dragged from a bus.
"People started attacking him, kicking him. They smashed a rock against his head. They kept going even after he was dead."
He went on: "They set the body on fire. There were about 20 youths. They cut a whole leg off. Then one of them started to eat it. He bit into it four times and swallowed. It was raw, not burned.
"This was right in front of the Burundian peacekeepers. One of the soldiers vomited. Then he chased people away with his gun."
'I swore revenge'
The cannibal's name was Ouandja Magloire - though he told me he was now known as "Mad Dog".
There was a busy market either side of the street, people hawking brightly coloured cloth, skin-whitening creams, and piles of fresh loaves. We went somewhere a bit quieter so I could ask him why he had done this awful thing.
He told me that Muslims had killed his pregnant wife, his sister-in-law, and her new baby.
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Everyone's so angry with the Muslims: No way anyone was going to intervene."
Ghislein Nzoto
Witness
He saw a man sitting on the minibus - he thought looked Muslim so he decided to follow the bus. More and more people joined him until he was at the head of a mob.
"We followed him," he said. "If he reached the intersection, the Burundians would protect him. So we told the minibus driver to stop. The driver said: 'You're right. He is a Muslim.'"
He described what happened after the man was dragged off the bus: "I kicked his legs out from under him. He fell down. I stabbed his eyes.
"Muslim! Muslim! Muslim! I stabbed him in the head. I poured petrol on him. I burned him. Then I ate his leg, the whole thing right down to the white bone. That's why people call me Mad Dog."
On the video, "Mad Dog" is seen happily chewing, his cheeks bulging. He waves a leg about in between mouthfuls. I returned to the question of why he had done this.
"Because I am angry," he said. He had no other explanation.
During our interview, he betrayed no sign of that anger, or of pride, or regret, or of any emotion at all. His tone was neutral, his eyes and face blank.
Baguette
The witness I'd spoken to, Ghislein Nzoto, said no-one in the busy street had tried to help the victim.
"No-one at all," he said, shaking his head. "Everyone's so angry with the Muslims. No way anyone was going to intervene."
But the most disturbing thing happened the next day, he said. "Mad Dog" returned, having saved some of the dead man's flesh. He put it between two halves of a baguette and ate it, with a side of okra.
Ghislein didn't agree with Muslims being killed but it was at least something he could comprehend, he said. Like most other Christians I spoke to, he was both appalled and baffled by the act of cannibalism.
Perhaps, he agreed with me, this atrocity was simply the act of an unbalanced individual. Or it might be the result of sectarian hatreds.
