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Dowa District Commissioner Charles Kalema says he has turned down the offer by two magicians in the district to hunt and kill the marauding beast that has killed and maimed several people. Parks and Wild Life Director Leonard Sefu has since supported the DC’s move.
Kalema said in an interview two magicians asked him early this week if they could go into the bushes to hunt the beast that has killed three people and maimed 16, but said he put them off because magic is not recognised in the laws of Malawi.
“I turned down the offer because as government we don’t engage magicians because magic is not recognised in the laws of Malawi. There are several traditional medicine men who claim they can track down the animal but we cannot engage them as government,” he said.
Kalema said the district will use the state security currently in the district comprising the Police Mobile Service officers and game rangers from the Ministry of Parks and Wildlife who are currently still hunting the animal.
He said magicians can only be hired by chiefs, saying even the traditional medicine men who claimed to have killed the previous animal were engaged by chiefs and not the district or any arm of government.
In another interview, Sefu said the DC was right to put them off according to the laws of Malawi, saying even his department cannot engage in any magic to kill the animal which he described as nothing magical but an ordinary hyena suffering from rabies.
“We cannot engage in any magic. The DC was right to turn them off because magic is not recognised by government and as a department we don’t believe in magic and we cannot engage in it. The animal in Dowa is no other than a hyena and hyenas can be hunted by our game rangers,” Sefu said.
He said the game rangers currently hunting the beast together with the police have not yet killed it because they have not made contact with it because of the tall bushes which make visibility a problem.
Sefu wondered why the magicians had to sought approval from the DC to kill the animal when the animal is causing havoc in the community where they are also staying saying the magicians should have killed the animal without going to government.
He maintained his department’s stand that the previous animal that also caused havoc in the district died naturally because it had rabies, which had reached an advanced state not because of magic as some traditional medicine men claimed.
Meanwhile, Kalema says about 100 villagers had, as of Monday, left Chezi trading centre where they camped in fear of the beast. The villagers were mainly from Mbonyela village where the beast killed three people.
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