11/30/11 Is the tide turning against the killing of 'cursed' infants in Ethiopia? - CNN.com
1/12edition.cnn.com//2011/11/05/world/africa/mingi-ethiopia/index.html
Home Video World U.S. Africa Asia Europe Latin America Middle East Business World Sport Entertainment Tech Travel iReport
(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
Set edition preference
Sign up Log in
<< < > >>1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
SHOW CAPTION
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
You've selected the International Edition. Would you like to make this your default edition? Yes | No Close
Recommend Preston Parker, Nancy Matlack Williams and
1,829 others recommend this.
11/30/11 Is the tide turning against the killing of 'cursed' infants in Ethiopia? - CNN.com
2/12edition.cnn.com//2011/11/05/world/africa/mingi-ethiopia/index.html
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
Cain blasts critics for 'character assassination'
Marilyn Monroe slept here
USDA fines Ringling Bros. Circus over treatmentof animals
First lawsuit filed against Sandusky in Penn Statechild sex scandal
Ali Fedotowsky: Why I left Roberto Martinez
Most PopularToday's five most popular stories
If they have themingi, there willbe no water, nofood, no cattle.But when theythrow the babyaway, everythingis good again.vil lager Bona Shapo
11/30/11 Is the tide turning against the killing of 'cursed' infants in Ethiopia? - CNN.com
3/12edition.cnn.com//2011/11/05/world/africa/mingi-ethiopia/index.html
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
11/30/11 Is the tide turning against the killing of 'cursed' infants in Ethiopia? - CNN.com
4/12edition.cnn.com//2011/11/05/world/africa/mingi-ethiopia/index.html
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
Educating kids to solve Africa's problems
An upbringing of discovery
Miracle doctor in Africa
A beacon of independence
11/30/11 Is the tide turning against the killing of 'cursed' infants in Ethiopia? - CNN.com
5/12edition.cnn.com//2011/11/05/world/africa/mingi-ethiopia/index.html
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.
11/30/11 Is the tide turning against the killing of 'cursed' infants in Ethiopia? - CNN.com
6/12edition.cnn.com//2011/11/05/world/africa/mingi-ethiopia/index.html
"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."
11/30/11 Is the tide turning against the killing of 'cursed' infants in Ethiopia? - CNN.com
7/12edition.cnn.com//2011/11/05/world/africa/mingi-ethiopia/index.html
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
11/30/11 Is the tide turning against the killing of 'cursed' infants in Ethiopia? - CNN.com
8/12edition.cnn.com//2011/11/05/world/africa/mingi-ethiopia/index.html
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,
11/30/11 Is the tide turning against the killing of 'cursed' infants in Ethiopia? - CNN.com
9/12edition.cnn.com//2011/11/05/world/africa/mingi-ethiopia/index.html
"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.