Dini Korul (about 52-54 years old), a victim of superstition-driven violence. In May 2011 her son Bobby Korul died at the age of 22 from a stomach infection. After Bobby’s funeral five his friends came to Dini’s house, accusing her of being a sorcerer, who had caused the death of her son. They took her out and dragged through the village to a pigsty, where they set a fire and made red-hot iron bars. Cutting her body with bush knives and burning with hot iron bars they forced her to admit that she was a witch. After numerous refusals they burned her vagina with the red-hot iron and were about to kill her, when women from another village called for help. Dini survived and spent over 10 month in the Kundiawa hospital. Her daughter paid for her treatment more than 900 kina (about 450 USD) and never received any help from the local authorities. Being expelled from the community forever, Dini had nowhere to go but to her village, where she still lives now. She almost does not leave the house during the daylight, living with a fear that she could be exposed to the brutal "punishment" again. Wormai village, Simbu Province.
40-year-old David Addo, a welder, was on July 10, 2021, allegedly caught raping 105-year-old Lomokie Tanihu.
Agnes Zotorvi, the caregiver of the victim, narrating the incident to Atinkaonline’s Edward Graham Sebbie said, on Saturday, July 10, 2021, around midday, whilst the old lady was sleeping, she heard her (old lady) frail voice screaming and decided to probe further.
She entered her room only to see David Addo on top of the helpless old lady and raised an alarm. Neighbours immediately rushed to the scene to apprehend the culprit and handed him over to the Sege police.
The centenarian, according to relatives, has on a number of occasions complained of someone having sexual affairs with her in the recent past, an assertion they attributed to old age and never took it seriously.
The old lady had bleeding issues months earlier which was treated on several occasions but “kept recurring without knowing the cause of an old lady who has nothing to do with menstruation bleeding.”
The family members, therefore, believe that the culprit is responsible for the old lady’s bleeding in the past, owing to his eventual arrest.
David Addo was arraigned before the Sege Magistrate Court on Thursday and remanded in police custody to reappear at a later date.
Meanwhile, a relative tells Atinkaonline that Lomokie Tanihu, is still on admission at the Battor Roman Catholic Hospital since the alleged sexual harassment, and may be discharged sometime today.
A further probe by Atinkaonline establishes that the suspect is synonymous with such acts. It is alleged that he was recently caught having sexual intimacy with a madwoman, making residents believe that he does that for money rituals.
The independent investigation further indicates that David Addo has been arrested a couple of times in connection with similar acts in the past.
