#Gabon : A 4 year old girl victim of a ritual crime at Nkoltang

 (warning: graphic image)

A girl mutilated at Nkoltang 

VISION of horror Sunday night (October 27) at Nkoltang, cluster of villages located about thirty kilometers from Libreville (capital city of Gabon), on National Highway 1. 

A four year old girl, little Catherine, was brutally murdered by a man in his forties, Claude Emery Massandé, partner of his mother, Augustine Bendoum, 42 . 

The mutilated body of the girl was found in the evening lying in a pool of blood on the path leading to the Criminal's home. The gruesome discovery was made by the mother of the victim and her third daughter.

The latter had gone to meet his child when one of her daughters told her that her partner had left quietly to take little Catherine to his home in the outskirts of the village, while she was spending time with neighbors.

At first, Augustine Bendom had thought that his companion had taken his daughter to force her to go home to sleep. Along the way, his third daughter and herself crossed path with Massandé alone, carrying a plastic bag.

The man, obviously in a hurry, reassured his partner that he would return home after a few minutes. Arriving at her partner's home, Augustine Bendom discovered the unspeakable : the mutilated body of her daughter. "It has taken some organs away. "There were signs of mutilation at the genitals", argued the mother of the little Catherine.

The corpse was almost decapitated. "The head is kept on the skin. There was a lot of body parts missing. He cut up the child, as a game", reported a family source, adding that the crime had been committed around 8 pm, after the forty years old man has returned from a trip to Libreville.

The news spread like wildfire. Young people offended by the killing embarked in a search for Claude Emery Massandé. But the man had already left to probably go deliver the ''parts'' to the recipient (sponsor). His act shocked the collective conscience in Nkoltang and beyond. Shortly before his crime, Claude Emery Massandé arrived with his uncle and his wife with a vehicle with an administrative (government) license plate. That evening, his uncle stopped by Augustine Bendom's home to place an order of cassava cuttings.

But was it really for cassava cuttings or something else? The investigation by the gendarmerie (military police) of Nkoltang, in search of the fugitive since Sunday, will unravel the «son of the skein». Some residents do not hesitate to believe that a car was waiting at the entrance of criminal's home and picked him up after his dirty work.

Massandé and Bendom Augustine have been dating for seven months. They visited each other regularly. He was unemployed and earned his living by selling tomatoes and pineapple. Did he received a large sum of money to commit a ritual crime and deliver human organs to a sponsor? Nothing is less certain.

Jonas Moulenda 
October 29, 2013