IV Whe Wide WXUning againVW Whe killing of 'cXUVed' infanWV … · 2015-01-07 · beckoning an evil spirit into their village. Murderous though it was, the decision to kill the boy

11/30/11 Is the tide turning against the killing of 'cursed' infants in Ethiopia? - CNN.com

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(CNN) -- His top teeth came in before his bottom teeth. That is how

elders of the Kara tribe determined that a healthy baby boy needed

to be killed.

The child was "mingi" — cursed, according to their ancient

superstitions. With every breath, they believed, the boy was

beckoning an evil spirit into their village.

Murderous though it was, the decision to kill the boy was the easy

part. It was the sacrifice of one infant for the good of the entire tribe

— a rite that some of the elders had witnessed hundreds of times

throughout their lives in Ethiopia's remote Omo River Valley.

The tribe's leaders were less certain of what they should do about

the boy's twin brother, who had died of sickness shortly after birth.

After some debate, including a pensive examination of a goat's

intestines, they decided the dead child must have been mingi, too.

So they dug up the corpse, bound it to the living boy, paddled a

canoe into the center of the Omo River and threw them both into the

murky brown water.

Is the tide turning against the killing of'cursed' infants in Ethiopia?By Matthew D. LaPlante, Special to CNN

November 5, 2011 -- Updated 1155 GMT (1955 HKT)

EDITION: INTERNATIONAL U.S. MÉXICO ARABIC

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The fight to end mingi killings in Ethiopia

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

In some Ethiopian villages,

children considered "mingi," or

cursed, are killed

A child can be mingi because of

physical deformities, illegitimate

birth or superstitions

Bad luck w ill come iIf they do not

kill the cursed infant, some

villagers believe

An effort by the government, aid

w orkers and mission groups

helps save children

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That was five years ago — a time before many outside of this

isolated basin had ever heard of mingi.

Today, nudged out of acquiescence by a slow-growing global

condemnation of the ritualistic infanticide practiced by the Kara,

Banna and Hamar tribes of southern Ethiopia, regional government

officials have begun to take action — threatening prison for those

complicit in mingi killings.

Meanwhile, a small band of Banna Christians has taken it upon itself

to give sanctuary to the mingi children of their tribe; an

enlightenment among some young and educated tribesmen of the

Kara has spawned an orphanage for the condemned; and global

Samaritans, drawn by the plights of these defenseless children,

have offered money and adoptive homes.

The combined efforts have saved scores of children.

But none of the interventions has brought an end to the deep fear

that stokes the slaughter. And so it is estimated by some

government officials, rescue workers and village elders that

hundreds of children are still being killed each year, by drowning,

suffocation and deliberate starvation.

'All the people'

Bona Shapo steers a dugout canoe through crocodile-infested

waters, guiding the craft ashore where the Omo River bends at the

bottom of a crumbling precipice near the tiny stick-and-thatch village

of Korcho.

The sun is setting into the ravine. Across the river, a troop of

colobus monkeys whoops and howls, stirring a flock of gangly

marabou storks from their perches on a stand of flat-topped acacia

trees.

"This is where they do it," says Bona, who stood upon these same

muddy banks on the day the twin boys were thrown into the river.

"Sometimes they take the babies out in a boat. Other times, they

just take them to the edge of the water and throw them in."

The mingi rites of the Kara are slightly different from those of the

Banna, which are, in turn, different from the Hamar. But common

among all is a profound fear of what might happen if the killings

were to stop.

There has been little academic scholarship on the

subject, but some observers have speculated that it

might have started many generations ago as a way to

purge people who are more likely to become a burden or

who cannot contribute to the propagation of their people.

That might explain why children who break a tooth or

injure their genitals are among those singled out for

death. Others are killed because they are born out of

wedlock or to married parents who have not completed a

ceremony announcing their intention to have children —

a brutal enforcement, perhaps, of the deep-rooted duty

that members have to the tribe first, their family second.

As far as the Kara elders are concerned, these rules are

as old and unyielding as the Omo River — and every bit

as crucial to their survival. Allowing a mingi child to live among the

Kara, they believe, could cause the rains to stop falling and the sun

to grow hotter.

"If they have the mingi, there will be no water, no food, no cattle,"

Bona says. "But when they throw the baby away, everything is good

again."

Elders bitterly recall times in which their sympathy for mingi children

prevailed over their fear. They believe that heedlessness cost the

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If they have themingi, there willbe no water, nofood, no cattle.But when theythrow the babyaway, everythingis good again.vil lager Bona Shapo



prevailed over their fear. They believe that heedlessness cost the

tribe most of its cattle and many of its members. Today, Kara

leaders say, a more respectful adherence to the brutal obligations

of their beliefs has allowed their tribe to thrive.

"So yes, it is sad, but we are thinking about the village, the family, all

the people," Bona says. "We tell the parents, 'don't cry for your

baby, because you will save everyone. You can always make

another baby.' "

'No other option'

She wasn't permitted to nurse him, hold him or even see him. But

Erma Ayeli still clings to an image of the baby she lost — fantasy

though it may be.

"I think he must have been a beautiful boy," Erma says as she rests

on a pile of sticks, surrounded by a playful mob of younger children.

"I wanted to keep him."

Her chin sinks into the tornado of colorful beads draped around her

neck.

Apparently sensing her sorrow, a young boy rests his half-shorn

head playfully on her lap. Erma tugs at his ear, smiles and reclaims

her composure.

She still mourns. But she does not question why her son was killed.

"There was no other option," she says.

Sex outside of the confines of marriage is acceptable among the

Kara. But if a woman becomes pregnant before participating in a

marriage ceremony, her child is considered "kumbaso," a mingi

curse that occurs when parents fail to perform the appropriate

series of rites before conceiving. Erma cannot marry, though, until

her older sister has first been wed.

Her hands fall to her swollen stomach; she is pregnant once again.

"It was an accident," she laments as she rubs her bare waist. "I don't

want to lose this baby, too."

There is a potion she can take; the village medicine man can mix a

concoction of roots and herbs that will make her sick and might

cause her body to reject her pregnancy, taking her baby's life

before others can take it from her.

Many women choose this path. Erma won't. Because this time, at

least, she has some reason to hope that her child might be spared a

violent death. Far away from her village, she has heard, there is an

orphanage for mingi babies. She has pleaded with village leaders to

let her child go there.

Either way, though, she won't be allowed to see her baby. Once

again, she'll be left to dream about what her child might look like.

"This time, I think, I might have a girl," Erma says.

Again, her head hangs low. Again, the boy next to her drops his own

head into her lap, glancing up with a wry smile.

This time, though, Erma doesn't smile back. She gently strokes his

smooth brown cheek.

'This was our culture'

They have taken her tribal clothes. Her beads, her animal skins and

her jewelry have been replaced by a tattered shirt and loose-fitting

skirt. In that and most other visible regards, Mashi Lamo is

indistinguishable from the other inmates at the Jinka Prison Institute.

Yet everyone in this ragtag penitentiary knows who she is. "The



Yet everyone in this ragtag penitentiary knows who she is. "The

mingi mother," says one guard, a woman whose crisply pressed

khaki uniform seems to stand out in defiance of this dirty,

dilapidated jail, cut into a hillside in the South Omo region's

administrative capital. "Yes, we all know what happened to her. It is

very sad."

It is not typical for Kara mothers to be asked to kill their

own mingi children — and none are known to have done it

of their own volition. In any case, fellow Kara say Mashi

could not have killed her baby; she was far too weak after

the birth to have done such a thing. It was other women

who took the child away, they say.

But when police arrived, Mashi took the blame. Within

days, she had been sentenced to three years in prison.

She had no attorney, and there was no trial.

She may be a prisoner today, but her past and future are

inexorably Kara. Mashi can speak and understand only

her native language. She's never been to school. When

she is finally released, there will be only one place to go.

And so, under the watchful eyes of several other Kara

prisoners, Mashi stands by her story.

"What they say is false," she says of those in her tribe

who have proclaimed her innocence. "I did it all myself."

But asked if she deserves to be in prison, the teenager

sinks her face into her hands.

"I hate it here," she says. "I wanted to keep my baby, but that was

not allowed. This was our culture."

A few feet away, another young prisoner — girlish in

figure and demeanor — hides behind a corrugated metal

wall and listens in. Prison guards say she is the only other

person serving time here for a mingi killing, and they say she shares

Mashi's plight.

But she cannot bring herself to speak of what happened. "This one

prefers to forget" the shipshape guard says.

Unevenly executed as it might be, the government's effort to crack

down on mingi killings has had an effect on the Kara. Combined with

other interventions, the fear of prison might be helping to save some

children.

But not all of them.

"Before, they did it in the open," says Solomon Ayko, a gangly

young Kara man who has witnessed several mingi killings. "Now, it

just happens in secret."

'They are human'

The Kara don't count the passing years as outsiders do, but by Ari

Lale's recollection, it happened about 15 years ago, when he was a

young man, eager to prove himself to the rest of his tribe.

A kumbaso baby had been born. Leaders asked Ari to supervise the

child's execution.

"The baby was crying," Ari says, "so we put sand in its mouth and he

was still trying to cry but couldn't anymore."

Soon, the child was dead, and Ari escorted a group of women away

from the village to throw the tiny boy's body into the bush.

What became of the child's remains? "The hyenas or other animals

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What became of the child's remains? "The hyenas or other animals

took it away," Ari says with a shrug.

Today, Ari is the leader of Korcho village, and he counts his

participation in the boy's death as one of his proudest memories.

"All the families would thank me for throwing away that baby," he

says. "If I had not done it, they would have been angry."

It is extremely uncommon for police officers to make the arduous trip

from Jinka to any of the Kara villages, but Ari says he and other

leaders are nonetheless wary of the threat of prison. At some point,

he says, the government will want to make an example out of

someone of his stature.

But Ari, who wears his hair taut under a hard, red clay bun in the

way of his tribe's warriors, has not stopped believing in the dark

magic of mingi. And so he and others have found a different way to

carry out the killings.

They will not drown or suffocate the children, as they once did. But

they have forbade anyone from the village to have contact with a

cursed baby.

"If a mother was to give the baby her breast, she would also become

mingi," he says. "After the baby is born, we keep it alone in the

house and we do not give it water or milk."

Without nourishment, the infants quickly die, and there is little that

can be done to prove that a baby wasn't simply stillborn.

Ari appears to be pleased about this solution. Yet he balances his

pride with a lament for the dead. "They are human," he says of the

mingi children.

For all of the praise he got for carrying out that first killing, Ari says,

he would have much preferred to let the child live, if only there had

been another way.

For some, now there is.

'A sickness in our culture'

Kara children die all the time.

Many succumb to disease. Others are killed by wild animals. And

some are sacrificed in the name of mingi.

For Shoma Dore, that was simply part of life.

"This is something that came down from generation to generation,"

Shoma says. "If a baby comes with the top teeth before the bottom

teeth, it must be killed. If it comes without the ceremony, it must be

thrown away. ... I didn't realize there was anything wrong with it."

Not, that is, until Shoma left the tribe to attend school in his early

teens. In Jinka, he says, he realized for the first time the evil that

was being done by his tribe. And when he returned, two years later,

he found that others among the Kara's more educated youths had

come to the same realization.

"There are many important and good parts of our culture — there is

also a sickness in our culture, and we have to change ourselves,"

says Aryo Dora, who decided a few years ago to go with Shoma and

about 30 other young Kara to plead with tribal elders to stop the

killings.

Their plan, developed with the assistance of a team of Westerners,

was simple: If mingi children could be sent far away from the village,

they would pose no risk to the tribe.



"Once we explained the plan, they agreed quite easily," Shoma

recalls.

And that is how the orphanage began.

It wasn't long before Webshet Ababaw was drawn into the fight. The

professional tour guide and driver was in Jinka when he received a

call from the orphanage. Leaders there had received word that a

kumbaso girl was about to be born in the Kara village of Labuk.

They needed someone with a four-wheel-drive vehicle who wasn't

afraid to race across the axle-breaking savannah to get to the

village in time to save her.

No one seemed inclined to help find the child when Webshet and an

official from the orphanage arrived in the village, but they finally

found the infant lying on the ground behind a stick hut. Her mouth

was filled with dirt and sand, but she was alive and seemed to be in

relatively good health, Webshet says.

Piecing together a newborn first-aid regimen from what he'd seen in

the movies and in a high school health class, Webshet unstrung a

lace from his shoe and tied it around the baby's broken umbilical

chord. When no one in the village would give him a blanket, he

wrapped the shivering child in his jacket. And when no one would

give him milk, he found a goat, crouched beside it, and took a small

amount for the girl.

None of the Kara had helped him on that day, but as he raced back

to Jinka, Webshet looked at the small bundle in the passenger seat

beside him and smiled.

There she was, improbably cooing as he bumped along the rugged

dirt road.

"At least someone decided to contact us," he says. "That is the only

reason why she was alive."

Orphanage officials later named the baby Edalwit, which means "she

is lucky."

Today, more than 30 mingi children live together in a small single-

story home in a quiet Jinka neighborhood. Aryo, who is co-director

of the orphanage, won't grant permission for outsiders to check on

the children — a rule intended to protect the orphans from potential

exploitation, he explains. But, he says, they are loved, cared for and

schooled with the hope that one day, they will be allowed to return to

their families.

"These children are the future leaders of their tribes," Aryo says.

"They are going to grow up big and strong. They are the ones who

will end mingi."

'We did our best'

It is a bright May morning in Korcho. In the communal spaces

between the round, grass-topped huts, dozens of women are on

their knees, vigorously thrusting their body weight into stone hand

mills, grinding sorghum into flour.

Zelle Tarbe, though, is working inside. It has been just six days since

she gave birth to her baby boy. Her breasts are still swollen — full of

milk that will not nourish her child. The shock of losing him is still

plastered across her face.

Zelle, who is unmarried, knew she would have to give up the child,

but it was harder than she expected. "I wanted to keep him with me,"

she says.

But she is nonetheless feeling very fortunate, "because my son is

alive."



Zelle was able to spend a few short moments with her

baby before orphanage officials spirited him away.

"He was so sweet and beautiful," she says from the

shadows of the hut as a friend butchers a goat and

hangs its carcass on the wall beside her. "But I did not

give him a name because he was mingi and could not

stay with me."

Already, though, she is dreaming of a day in which she

might make the journey to see her boy.

"Someday, I hope, I can visit him in Jinka," she says.

No one, least of all Zelle, would argue that the rescue mission isn't

preferable to death for mingi children. But the orphanage has

nonetheless been a controversial solution. A Christian group that

supported the effort for two years withdrew its backing this spring

after accusing the orphanage's director of stealing money donated

by American benefactors.

Orphanage officials counter-accused the Americans — who had

helped arrange the adoptions of four mingi babies — of stealing the

children from their families. The adoptions were, in fact, all legal

under Ethiopian law, which treats mingi children as abandoned. But

the orphanage leaders have argued that the biological parents

surrendered their babies under cultural duress and should have the

right to reclaim those children if their situation were to change.

Either way, adoptions and orphanages don't address the root

causes of mingi. And even when it had the support of a determined

and resourceful team of Westerners, the rescue and shelter system

was able to save only a fraction of the endangered children.

"At one point, there were six women we knew about who were

pregnant with mingi children," recalls Jessie Benkert, one of the

Americans who supported the rescue effort. "We only got one."

Geography is as much an obstacle as tradition. The Kara tribe is

separated into three main villages, and the only telephone able to

reach the outside world is in the main village of Dus, an hours-long

hike from the other communities. Hundreds of other Kara live deep

within the bush and, tribe members say, are more likely to carry out

mingi killings there without notice.

Getting from Jinka to any of the Kara villages in a four-wheel-drive

vehicle is, in the best of situations, a half-day's trip across soft

savannah sands and muddy river beds. A light rain can delay the

trip by days. And during the rainy season, which lasts for up to eight

months each year, the route can be washed away entirely.

Tribal leaders in Korcho say about 20 mingi children have been

born into their small village since the orphanage opened.

Orphanage workers have arrived in time to save only about half of

them, they say.

Last year, rescue mission leaders learned that a Kara woman had

given birth to a mingi boy whom tribal elders had promptly attempted

to kill by ripping out his umbilical cord. The wounds had quickly gone

septic, and there was no time to send a car to retrieve the child.

Evacuation by air was the only solution; chartering the aircraft cost

$3,500.

"That was the sum of all the money we had," said Levi Benkert,

Jessie's husband. "And we couldn't be certain that, even if we did it,

he was going to live."

They did it anyway — and saved the boy. An online fundraising

effort quickly recouped the costs of the evacuation, but rescue

mission officials knew they couldn't sustain those sorts of expenses.

At one point,there were sixwomen we knewabout who werepregnant withmingi children.We only got one.Jessie Benkert, an American part of themingi rescue effort



mission officials knew they couldn't sustain those sorts of expenses.

And, in any case, they've since been pushed out of the Omo River

Valley by local government officials who have sided with the

orphanage's Ethiopian director.

"We did our best," Levi Benkert says. "We saved as many children

as we could. And we continue to pray for them every day."

'Out of fear'

The people of the Omo River Valley love their children.

That is what Andreas Kosubek has come to believe over six years of

organizing medical mission trips into the Kara heartland.

"These people are really good people," says the German

missionary, who recently gained permission from tribal elders to

build a home on Kara lands. "They are not doing this because they

are evil, wild, dumb monsters. They're doing it out of fear. They fear

for the lives of others in the tribe."

From Kosubek's point of view, the fear will end only if the Kara come

to believe in something stronger than mingi. In his way of thinking,

that means introducing them to Christianity.

"But we cannot do that," the 29-year-old evangelist says, "unless we

approach them with humility and a dedication to service."

And Kosubek says he has often failed in that regard.

Not long ago, a Kara man brought his sick daughter to Kosubek,

who was on tribal lands to work on his home and not accompanied

by anyone with medical training.

The toddler was breathing rapidly and not responding to her father's

words or touch.

"She was the same age as my daughter and, you know, if my

daughter had been sick like that, there is nothing I wouldn't have

done to save her," Kosubek says, noting that he would have

immediately evacuated his own daughter to a hospital. "But so many

things crossed my mind: It's difficult, it's expensive."

The girl later died, probably of simple pneumonia.

"I could have helped her," Kosubek says. "And I am ashamed."

Kosubek recognizes the need to end mingi killings, but he doesn't

feel entitled to condemn those deaths.

"Far more children are dying in other ways," he says. "These are

ways that we can address and prevent immediately if we just cared

enough. Before we judge, we have to ask ourselves what we have

done to help these children."

In that question, he believes, is a model for truly bringing an end to

the slaughter — through genuine selflessness and compassion.

He's seen it, firsthand, among the people of the nearby Banna tribe.

'My children are also mingi'

In a smoke-filled mud hut in the village of Alduba, Kaiso Dobiar dips

a ladle into a tar-black pot of coffee, filling her home with the aroma

of the brew as she stirs the simmering liquid.

Kaiso is proud to be Banna, and she follows many of her tribe's

customs and beliefs. But she is also Christian and, wary of false

idolatry, she and her husband refused to perform the rites

mandated by tribal leaders before they conceived.

"So my children are also mingi, in that way of thinking," says Kaiso,



"So my children are also mingi, in that way of thinking," says Kaiso,

who is fostering two additional mingi children in her home.

A tiny girl crawls onto Kaiso's lap, reaching over to help stir the pot.

"This is Tarika," Kaiso says. "She is 2 years old, and she is mingi."

The girl was born without the appropriate Banna ceremonies, but

her birth mother hid the child for six months. "Then the rains

stopped for a short time," Kaiso says. "The people rose up and said,

'You must get rid of her. Throw her into the bush.' But I said, 'do not

throw your child into the bush, give her to me.' "

Also sharing this small hut with Kaiso's family is Tegist, another

mingi child who guesses her age at 7 or 8 years. Kaiso says her

foster daughters cannot play with other Banna children and must

remain in her family's small compound.

"They will have to stay here until they are older," Kaiso says. "After

that? God, he knows."

Missionaries first came to the Banna decades ago, and the Christian

church here is larger than any other among the tribes of this region.

Still, their numbers are small; Banna's Christians make up just 1 or 2

percent of the tribe's population.

But their collective efforts have been enough to almost eliminate

mingi killings within their tribe. With little money or other means of

support, Banna's Christians have accepted responsibility for nearly

all of the tribe's mingi children. Many, like Kaiso, are already caring

for one or more mingi boys and girls. One family has taken in 17

foster children.

They do so at great potential risk to their own families. As she steps

outside her home, the precariousness of Kaiso's situation becomes

clear.

"Kaiso, why are you protecting those children?" an angry neighbor

screams from beyond a stick fence. "Tell us why!"

The Banna have not faced drought or a significant bout with deadly

disease for many years. That, local Christians say, has kept much of

their neighbors' anger at bay.

But if the tribe's fortunes were to change, its leaders would be swift

to identify a culprit, Banna tribesman Andualem Turga says.

"What you need to understand is that, to these people, these babies

are like an influenza," he says. "If it is not stopped, it can kill many

people. That is what they believe. ... And when things go badly, the

people believe this more than ever."

Another foster mother, Uri Betu, tries not to think about such things.

Her faith, she says, is clear on her responsibilities to the two mingi

children who live in her home — and any others that need her care.

"For now, we do not worry," Uri says as she watches her pair of 2-

year-old foster daughters, Tariqua and Waiso, play in her yard.

Over time, Uri prays, the Banna will see that the presence of mingi

children in their midst is unrelated to the patterns of rain and sun

that sometimes cause their crops to fail.

Still, she laments, "there is a long way to go to change the beliefs we

have had for so long."

Matthew D. LaPlante is a journalist and an assistant professor of journalism at Utah State

University. Rick Egan is a staff photographer at The Salt Lake Tribune. A version of this

story f irst appeared in Christianity Today.

Documents

IV Whe Wide WXUning againVW Whe killing of 'cXUVed' infanWV … · 2015-01-07 · beckoning an evil spirit into their village. Murderous though it was, the decision to kill the boy