Sinafasi Makelo came to New York this week to participate in the second session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and to raise awareness of the suffering of his people, the Mbuti (also known as Pygmies) of the northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. His foremost concern is to call attention to the alleged acts of cannibalism committed by army and rebel soldiers in the war-torn Ituri province. He described hunting parties setting out in the dense forests to hunt down and eat Mbuti – with some fighters believing that the flesh gives them magic powers – and called for the United Nations to establish a tribunal to try perpetrators for cannibalism and other “crimes against humanity”.
