LIBREVILLE, gabon–When the body of 13-year-old Ralph Edang N'na was found drained of blood and with gaping wounds in his genitals, chest and neck last month, many in Gabon thought it was politicians who had ordered his killing.

The murder of children and young adults, whose organs are eaten or used to make magical amulets, has increased in recent years in the oil-rich central African nation. Campaigners say some Gabonese politicians use the black magic rituals to boost their chances of winning lucrative government posts.

With elections to municipal councils on Sunday, many fear a spate of gruesome child murders.

Every week, mutilated bodies are discovered in the capital Libreville, despite police patrols. Anxious parents keep a close eye around schools so children aren't snatched.

"It's before elections and ministerial reshuffles that the vilest crimes are committed and the capital empties of certain kinds of politicians who go to the interior to carry out witchcraft," said pastor François Bibang, a member of the Association to Fight Ritual Crimes (ALCR).

In ritual killings, which still take place in several African countries, victims' body parts and blood are used in ceremonies to bestow social success and political power.

The ALCR says February alone saw 12 such killings in Gabon.

"Unfortunately, this practice seems to be spreading again in Gabon," said Jean-Elvis Ebang Ondo, who founded ALCR after his 12-year-old son was kidnapped, killed and mutilated in 2005.

The government set up a National Observatory for the Rights of Children in fall 2006 to implement a UN children's charter that enshrines, among other things, the right to protection from abuse.

Gabon is one of sub-Saharan Africa's largest oil producers but most of its citizens live in poverty.

Omar Bongo, who has ruled Gabon since 1967, used oil funds to weave a web of patronage which has created bitter competition for lucrative political jobs.

Ondo decried "the silence of the state," – a penal code approved in January omitted any mention of ritual crimes. No clear figures exist for the number of such victims.

Another activist, Frederic Ntera Etoua, tallied 290 such killings in the jungles of Ogooue-Ivindo province where Ralph Edang N'na died.

Parliamentary speaker Guy Nzouba Ndama opened a session of the assembly on March 3 by denouncing ritual crimes by politicians.

But no politician has been convicted for such crimes. An attempt to prosecute a legislator from Gamba region last year failed after he claimed parliamentary immunity.

Psychologist Philippe Ndong of Libreville University traces the rise in ritual murders to 2001.

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"As legislative elections approached, mutilated bodies were discovered around the country," he said. "An 8-year-old girl was snatched in Ndolou department and killed in Mouila. The man allegedly responsible was a candidate to Parliament who entered the government after this crime."



