Kiss The Boys: Serial Killer Targets Gay Men in South Africa

South Africa, known for gold, diamonds, apartheid and Nelson Mandela; is popular in the gay community for many reasons. First, it’s the only country in Africa where GLBT are protected by the law and allowed to marry, with all the well-known tax and other benefits that comes with it. It’s also given us some fabulous porn stars such as Kurt Rogers and Jason Kingsley (yes, the link is SFW). On the other hand, it has become infamous for its high frequency of violence against lesbians and now, the violent murder of gay men. South Africa is actually the country with the second highest number of serial killers (after the United States) according to South African profiler M. Pistorius. The information available on these crimes suggest that they are the work of a serial killer and even more worrying is that the police do not seem any closer to catching him after three years and the killing spree shows no signs of abating. 

 

New World Jack The Rippper

I wonder about serial killings in Africa. I don’t know if they are as commonplace as in the West (in terms of statistical data) but sometimes I feel that such crimes may even be more commonplace. Very often crimes committed against members of lower socio-economic classes are be under-reported, murders may often be grouped under ritual killings/sacrifice. The sad thing is that even when the media goes crazy over a case, it doesn’t take a lot of time before the frenzy dies down, the murderers remain at-large and everyone goes back to the rat race, only for the cycle to repeat itself. There is also the possibility that the police may be so occupied with other more important tasks (providing security to some politicians is a prime example) that such crimes as these take a back seat.

Enter Rwanda, where fifteen young women have been murdered in only three months in the capital city.

 

Immortalizing Evil

The media has been awash with the news of four Nigerian university students who were murdered at the hands of a mob last week because they were alleged to be armed robbers. There are different variations of the story – some account say they went to accost another student who owed them some money whilst others say they extorted property from the said student who then began to shout “Thieves” after they left. The end result was that these boys were  stripped naked, beaten and and then burned alive in the name of ‘punishing’ criminals. To top it all, there were a lot of people watching all this go down and one of them had the gall to make a video and upload it. I certainly didn’t know any of the boys but I have not been able to focus on anything else since. I am filled with a deep sense of sadness that young people could meet such a gruesome death in 2012 and a sense of fear/horror that there are human beings who could do this to another person. No one deserves to die like this, certainly not for the mobile phone and laptop they were alleged to have taken. But what really kills my spirit is that there were other people watching and they did nothing to help these boys.

May their souls find rest.

I’ve thought hard about whether or not to post a link to the video but I decided to do so because I didn’t appreciate the gravity of this crime until I saw it. I couldn’t sleep last night and I don’t know if tonight will be any better.

**DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK UNLESS YOU ARE TRULY CERTAIN YOU WANT TO VIEW THE VIDEO**

Edit: The Nigerian Police have so far arrested at least 13 people associated with the crime. Read more here