South African President, Jacob Zuma

A case of cannibalism involving traditional healers and their potential patients on Thursday caused public outcry in South Africa.

Local ward councillor in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province Mthembeni Majola had told journalists that about 300 residents confessed during a community meeting to eating human flesh given to them by one of the traditional healers.

The community meeting was held after two traditional healers, were arrested after one of them last week walked into a police station, holding a human leg and hand, saying he was “tired of eating human flesh,” local newspaper The Witness reported.

Five men of the men who allegedly raped and killed a woman and then ate her body parts, appeared in the Estcourt Magistrates’ Court in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province on charges of murder and conspiracy on Thursday.

Hundreds of people gathered in front of the court in Estcourt in outrage over the alleged cannibalism and had to be prevented by police from storming the building.

Eating human flesh is not a criminal offence in South Africa, but the national health act forbids possession of human tissue unless authorised, as well as the desecration or mutilation of corpses.

(dpa/NAN)