South Africans have spent the best part of a week being shocked by the cannibal stories coming out of Estcourt, a rural village in KZN.

It started with one man wandering into a police station and saying he was tired of eating flesh (HERE), and the next day news broke about one house having eight ears in a pot (HERE).

That was just the tip of the iceberg, because the next thing we heard was that “hundreds” of villagers had admitted to eating human flesh.

As you can imagine, this is the kind of story that captures overseas attention, and the BBC are one such outlet.

Their headline is “Shock and fear amid South Africa cannibalism case“, and there are a few new details worth discussing.

First up is a look at the man who first handed himself in, claiming to be a traditional healer:

The traditional healer lived in a rented hut in Rensburgdrift near Escourt.

He is nicknamed “Mkhonyovu” which loosely translated means “the corrupt one or corruption” in the local Zulu language.

He rented the hut [below] from Philani Magubane, whose brother was also arrested for being the traditional healer’s alleged accomplice.

“I was shocked to find out that my younger brother fell for the traditional healer’s fairytales – he promised them wealth when he was just as poor as I am,” Mr Magubane told me.

He said that one his tenants had been complaining about the smell of rotting meat that was coming from his next door neighbour.

A picture, taken through a crack in the door of the hut, shows some items used during the ‘rituals’:

Mthembeni Majola is the local politician who convened a community meeting, at which the full extent of the village’s horrors were laid bare:

“Most residents were shocked by this and now live in fear,” but Mr Majola says others were not surprised.

“A few confessed to have consulted with the traditional healer and knowingly ate human flesh,” he said.

“But what has angered most of us here is how gullible our people have become,” saying that Mkhonyovu’s customers were livestock thieves who were told he could make them invincible, even bulletproof, so that the police could not shoot them, said Mr Majola.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, it seems.

If you can stomach further details, the Sunday Times also dug a little deeper and visited a community currently racked by fear:

When night falls in Estcourt and its surrounding rural villages, residents hurry indoors. Only those who work late shifts or who absolutely have to be are on the streets – and they are usually walking hastily to get to the safety of their homes…

[Estcourt mayor Jabu] Mbhele said she was aware of the three desecrated graves – and fears that similar occurrences might show that the cannibalism horror is even more widespread than feared.

“I would not say the [five] suspects are linked to this, but around the same time [as the three graves were desecrated] other graves in Wembezi township, including one that belongs to my husband’s relative, were violated,” she said.

Pretty glad I don’t live anywhere near this village right now.

The five suspects arrested appeared in the Estcourt Magistrate’s Court yesterday, where they abandoned their bail application.

The case was postponed to 28 September, and charges against them include murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Who knows what else will be uncovered as investigations continue, but you can be sure it won’t be pretty.

[sources:bbc&sundaytimes]