An unemployed 24-year-old man in Lira District has reportedly attempted to sacrifice two family members including his father, in a desperate attempt to acquire quick wealth and liberate himself from economic hardship.
Pastor Ambrose Abar, the parish chief of Akor Parish in Ogur Sub-county, claims his second born son almost had him and their last born daughter murdered for money rituals last year.
“At the institution where he was studying, he saw his age mate driving a very expensive and beautiful car. When he dug deeper into his friend’s wealth, he realised it involved human sacrifice for money rituals,” the pastor told KFM.“The friend then introduced him to their cult group and after he was accepted to join it, they told him to take photographs of his family member to an oracle so that he could be initiated.”
Tired of wallowing in poverty, the poor youth then gathered photographs of his father, mother and three siblings and took them to the oracle where his father and 12-year sister were to be sacrificed so he could reportedly acquire three cars and a huge sum of money.
“Around that time, my wife and I became critically ill. Our conditions did not respond to medication and little did we know that it was spiritual. My wife was unconscious for 10 days, while I was bedridden for 12 days,” Pastor Abar explained.
Police Detective Sergeant Hellen Acayo who is handling the matter said many youth often engage in criminality due to among others, substance abuse, lack of employment opportunities, failure to succeed in the education system, and pressure of materialism.
“Youth constitutes seventy to eighty per cent of the population of inmates in prisons. Here in Barr Sub-county, we had rampant cases of robberies but we managed some of these cases by sending the offenders to prison,” she said.
Mr Thomas Akaa, Barr LC3 chairman, said: “What is killing our youth is dependency syndrome. They don’t want to work and think everything is for free. They don’t want to form groups that can make supporting them become easy and are all the time complaining that they have been abandoned or neglected.”
Barr acting sub-county chief, Mr George Isaac Okune, said youth that have benefited from Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP) are mismanaging the government programme.
