The suspects boarding a police van. Photo: Macmillan Mhone
Seven people were killed in southern Malawi in May after rumours spread that strangers could make men’s genitals disappear through touch. Medical examinations later confirmed that none of the alleged victims had lost their organs.
But the violence that swept through villages in Chikwawa and neighbouring Nsanje districts revealed a deeper institutional problem: Malawi is relying on a colonial-era witchcraft law written in 1911. Critics say the legislation leaves authorities poorly equipped to respond to panic-driven mob violence.
Between 8 and 11 May, mobs killed seven people after rumours circulated rapidly through communities about so-called genital theft. Five of the victims died in Chikwawa and two in Nsanje, according to the Malawi Police Service.
Authorities deployed officers across affected villages, sending vehicles through communities with loudhailers, urging residents to stop the attacks. Police say 45 suspects have since been arrested.
A senior police official, who travelled to the region to oversee the response, said 27 suspects faced murder charges while another 16 were detained for spreading false information.
The rumours, police said, might have been deliberately spread. “Some of the victims were businesspersons,” the official said, suggesting that personal disputes or economic rivalries could have fuelled the accusations.
Traditional leaders echoed that assessment. Senior chief Ngabu of Chikwawa (Noah Dalasi Chasafaili) said the allegations did not reflect known cultural beliefs and appeared in some cases to be linked to personal conflicts.
Medical professionals quickly dismissed the claims that triggered the violence. Henry Makowa, the president of the Medical Doctors Union of Malawi, said it was medically impossible for male genitals to disappear through physical contact.
“In some cases, cold weather, fear, stress or anxiety may temporarily cause the genital organs to retract slightly due to normal muscle reflexes in the body,” he said. “But this is a normal physiological response and not evidence of witchcraft.”
Researchers describe such outbreaks as a form of mass psychogenic illness — episodes in which anxiety spreads rapidly through a community and manifests as physical symptoms.
In medical literature the phenomenon is often referred to as koro, or genital retraction syndrome, a culture-bound syndrome first proposed for classification in the DSM-IV in the 1990s. The condition has been documented in epidemic form in both Asian and African settings.
People experiencing the condition are not deliberately fabricating symptoms. Social stress and fear can produce physical sensations that reinforce the belief that something supernatural has occurred.
A 2005 study published in Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry by researchers Dzokoto and Adams documented similar genital-shrinking panics across six West African countries between January 1997 and October 2003.
The researchers found outbreaks often occurred during periods of economic hardship or heightened social anxiety.
A comparable incident occurred in Tanzania just weeks earlier. In April 2026, at least five people were killed after similar rumours spread from the border town of Tunduma in Songwe Region through Mbeya and Dar es Salaam, according to a 4 April statement by Tanzanian police spokesperson David Misime.
Police warned citizens against spreading the unverified claims and said all individuals who reported genital disappearance had been medically examined and found to be unharmed.
Psychologist Dr Eric Umar of the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences said such rumours could spread quickly in communities facing uncertainty.
“These narratives provide emotionally satisfying explanations during periods of fear and uncertainty,” Umar said. “Once they begin circulating, they can be very difficult to counter.”
Malawi’s ability to respond to such crises remains constrained by the country’s Witchcraft Act, legislation that commenced on 12 May 1911 under the British colonial administration. The law does not recognise the existence of witchcraft.
Instead it criminalises accusing someone of practising witchcraft outside formal legal processes and prohibits individuals from presenting themselves as witch-finders.
Penalties under the Act vary by offence. Accusing someone of witchcraft carries up to five years in prison. Pretending to practise witchcraft can result in up to 10 years, while the profession of witch-finder is classified as a felony carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The legislation was originally designed to suppress supernatural accusations that could provoke violence. But legal experts say it does little to address modern dynamics such as mass rumours, misinformation or coordinated public health responses to panic-driven episodes.
Recognising the gaps, the Malawi Law Commission completed a review of the Act in December 2021, when its special law commission presented findings and recommendations to the public at a briefing in Lilongwe.
The recommendations were re-presented publicly this month in the same week the killings in the Shire Valley dominated national headlines. Commission chairperson Justice Robert Chinangwa said the proposed reforms would formally recognise witchcraft as a criminal offence.
Under the proposal, practising witchcraft could carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison, with the possibility of capital punishment if a death occurs as a result. The minister of justice Charles Mhango welcomed the recommendations, saying they could “change the way people handle witchcraft cases”.
But human rights groups warned the proposal could make matters worse. In a joint statement issued in December 2021, the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) and the Centre for the Development of People argued that criminalising witchcraft itself risked legitimising accusations and increasing violence against vulnerable groups.
Writing on behalf of both organisations, CHRR executive director Michael Kaiyatsa said they had documented more than 60 killings linked to witchcraft accusations in the preceding two years, with most victims elderly.
Violence against older citizens accused of supernatural wrongdoing has become a persistent pattern in Malawi. The Malawi Network of Older Persons Organisations’ (Manepo) recorded nearly 300 killings of elderly people linked to witchcraft accusations between January 2016 and April this year.
In 2022, 15 elderly people were killed. The number rose to 22 in 2025. In the first four months of 2026 alone, 12 deaths were recorded. Manepo executive director Andrew Kavala warned earlier this year that Malawi was “sitting on a ticking time bomb”.
Although arrests often follow such killings, many cases fail to progress through the justice system. An analysis of police data by Nation Online found that between 60% and 70% of witchcraft-related killings lead to arrests but only a small proportion reach trial.
In August 2023, former minister of gender, community development and social welfare Jean Sendeza told parliament that 88 murder cases involving elderly victims remained unresolved in court.
Parliament attempted to strengthen legal protections by passing the Older Persons Act on 5 April 2024, with former president Lazarus Chakwera signing the bill into law on 19 May 2024. The law criminalises abuse of elderly citizens and allows courts to issue protection Orders.
Civil society groups welcomed the legislation. But rising killings in 2025 and 2026 suggest enforcement remains weak.
After the May attacks, the Malawi Human Rights Commission sent investigators to
Chikwawa and Nsanje. Chairperson Chikondi Chijozi-Jere said the team interviewed complainants who believed their genitals had disappeared. No medical evidence supported the claims.
“It is deeply worrying that lives have been lost,” she said. “We are following the issue to ensure justice prevails for the affected families.”
Authorities attributed the violence largely to misinformation. Chikwawa District Commissioner Frank Mkandawire said the council had intensified civic education campaigns after the killings, which he described as being fuelled by “deliberate misinformation and hatred”.
The National Initiative for Civic Education also condemned the attacks, calling them “morally indefensible” and a violation of constitutional protections for life and human dignity.
But the institutions responding on the ground have limited power to change the laws governing such cases. That responsibility lies with parliament and the ministry of justice.
Despite the Law Commission completing its review, no revised Witchcraft Act has yet been introduced in parliament.
The broader conditions that researchers say can fuel mass panic remain widespread in Malawi. World Bank data shows about 72% of Malawians live on less than $2.15 (R35) a day.
Poverty, social uncertainty and distrust of formal institutions are factors widely identified in academic research as contributing to the spread of rumour-driven violence.
Malawi’s southern districts also share porous borders with neighbouring countries, allowing rumours, as well as people and trade, to move easily across communities.
For the families of the seven victims buried in the Shire Valley, the national debate over legal reform comes too late. Forty-five suspects remain in custody as the criminal process begins. Whether the cases will reach a complete trial remains uncertain.
The central question remains unresolved: how Malawi should respond to violent accusations rooted in fear, belief and misinformation.
More than a century after the Witchcraft Act was written, the law governs how such claims are handled, even as the violence it was meant to prevent continues to claim lives.
