Penis theft

While looking up the article mentioned in the previous post, I noticed this headline:

Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital

Yea, ummm, wha?

Of course I had to click the link. The first two paragraphs of the article read,

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

This immediately brought to mind the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes,

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

Truer words…