Church in the News: Acid attack after girl branded a witch by pastor

Okay, this is just one of those stories that makes you want to SHOUT! Shout something reallly bad. But I wont. I will just post it so that you can see for yourself the products of fanaticism, illiteracy and poverty and what a fatal cocktail they can be when combined:

For those who don't know her, Comfort Sunday is the 14-year-old girl whose father poured acid on her after a pastor convinced her family that she was a witch and the source of all her family's problems. The father took her to an uncompleted building, where he poured a tin-full of corrosive acid on her.

Comfort was until the incident a JSS II student of Government Secondary School, Akwanga, and was living with her father, Sunday James, 61, and her stepmother, Justina Abimiku, 52. She lost her mom at a tender age and had been severally maltreated by her step mum.

Very disturbing pictures and more after the jump:
 

According to a 2010 Daily Trust Report...

After taking her to the uncompleted building, the father blackmailed her into swallowing the corrosive substance, saying if she does that without throwing it out, she is not the devil being thought of. But if she does throw it out, then she was confirming the fears that she is a witch which has been smothering family members, including her late mother. So, she tried drinking it, to prove her innocence. It hurt, biting her tongue. She threw it out immediately. She was guilty of the deaths in the family, including of her very mother as her father declared. So her father overpowered her and ran the acid on her face, then he left.

 James was acting the script of a pastor whose name Weekly Trust could not obtain because he and the entire family is concealing his identity. The priest pointed at Comfort and accused her of the deaths in the family, alleging how she is in a cult which demands blood from her all times and called her a witch. He did not allow her to deny, as he took his fee and left without casting out the demon.

Comfort was first accused in 2008 by her stepmother of being a witch. She accused her of being responsible for the ill-health of family members. Headache, stomachache, fevers; everything was blamed on her. Her father, a security guard at the Catholic Church in Alushi area of Akwanga, believed his wife’s story of how Comfort is the virus causing all illness around the family. The stepmom had this to say: “I have eight children with one of them dead. One day, about three years ago, after my husband brought Comfort to stay with us from the South-West and all my children and myself fell inexplicably sick.”

 Matters got worse for Comfort, as after being pushed her next door to her grandparents, her grandfather, Auta Anaku fell ill at this time and he passed on. Confession upon confession sprang up about how Comfort had told family members she is a witch. So, when James’ younger sister, Barmami fell ill in 2008, and was rushed to Abuja, she decided to explore other means to cure her illness. She ran to the pastor who followed her down to Akwanga to make the accusations. What followed was the acid bath.

 Better Leven, an NGO based in Akwanga, is trying to rehabilitate Comfort who had been in its custody since then. Timothy Tashi, programme officer of the NGO said on several occasions he contacted James and brought up the condition of Comfort, but that the father has always refused show any remorse even as the girl’s condition is not improving. Also, the NGO is having problems attracting government’s attention to her, just as the police have continued to look the other way. James is walking the streets scot-free after he made statements to the police.

Meanwhile, a doctor, who chose to remain anonymous, stressed the urgent need for surgery to be done on Comfort’s face, as her condition may worsen, making correction difficult or even impossible.

Victor Labesa, Nasarawa State coordinator of the Legal Aid Council, described the deed of James as barbaric and callous. He said with the Child’s Right Act domesticated in the state since 2005, James committed a crime against humanity and must be brought to book. But the police cannot act, as Comfort remains in pain, victim to the superstitious beliefs of those supposed to love and care for her.

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A January 2011 Daily Trust update on the issue...

Stepbrother allegedly attempts to poison ‘Acid Bath Girl’

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police in Nasarawa State is investigating one Alexander Sunday, half-brother of Comfort Sunday, whose face and respiratory system have been disfigured after her father emptied a can of acid on her face in 2008 on the suspicion that she was a witch. Alexander, 22, is currently in detention after he was arrested by the police in Akwanga last Sunday, (January 2011) for allegedly poisoning the food of his half-sister the previous day at the family’s residence along Mai-Doki Street in Akwanga.

Their father, Sunday James, has been in detention and will be arraigned in court on February 3, for allegedly bathing his daughter with acid in 2008. James walked freely initially, but pressures from the Tashi A. Tashi-led NGO currently giving care to the teenage girl, as well as the Legal Aid Council, have compelled the police to re-arrest him for prosecution, while he awaits arraignment in court.

Comfort lost her mother while she was still young and had grown up under tough conditions because of maltreatment from her father and stepmother as well as her half-brother and sister, all of whom have raised emotions against her, alleging she is responsible for deaths in the family.

Alexander was caught with a pot of food his half sister kept in her room, by other occupants of the house who insisted on knowing what his motives were. On opening the pot, they discovered the food in it was foaming with a black substance suspected to be poison.

Comfort’s statement to the police indicates that she had long suspected her half-brother’s malice. She said Alexander had threatened to send her out of the house because she is responsible for the detention of their father.

State police spokesman, ASP Richard Akoji, confirmed the incident and the arrest, saying the police are investigating Alexander for the alleged poison.

Source: Linda Ikeji  and Daily Trust

I have no words. Really.