Congo children accused of sorcery

KINSHASA, Congo — When Mando Mengi was 5, his mother died and his father remarried. His stepmother, a tall, mercurial woman with two children of her own, saw Mando as a burden and gave him endless chores while the other kids did nothing.

One day, Mando refused to sweep the dirt floor of their home. His stepmother found a sinister explanation for his stubbornness: He was practicing witchcraft.

She began to withhold food and sometimes beat him, saying it would purge the evil spirits. Finally, she gave his father an ultimatum: "You've brought a sorcerer into this house," Mando recalled her saying. "Either he leaves or I do."

Mando didn't wait for him to decide. He ran away, joining tens of thousands of children who live on the streets of this broken-down African capital — most of them, aid agencies say, rejected by families who accuse them of witchcraft.

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