Cape Town - The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in Bloemfontein has confiscated several animals, including five monkeys, a tortoise, dogs and chickens, in a property belonging to a local sangoma.
The organisation says it was in for more than what they had bargained for when they received a complaint from the public regarding a Sangoma keeping five vervet monkeys in a garage.
Upon getting a search warrant, SPCA says they were initially denied entry to the house by the owner.
“We obtained a warrant and gained entry to the property. Before we entered the property, we waited two hours for the owner to find out she was hiding inside her house. When we opened the garage where the monkeys were kept, we were shocked,” says SPCA.
They say that the monkeys appeared to have been caged in the sweltering garage for a while.
“The monkeys were shocked to see the sunlight as the garage door is always closed and there was no light inside. The garage was very hot. Just standing in the garage for a minute, we were overheating, and just to imagine, the monkeys had to stay inside that garage without any food and water. The cage was so dirty that there was a layer of faeces and urine. This caused burns to the monkey's hands and behind side,” they added.
While searching the property, they found other animals, including a tortoise, puppies seemingly infected with parvo, a pitbull and chickens.
“The pitbull’s was underweight and very weak. The dogs were found with severe external parasites. The chickens were found with warts and were severely malnourished. These chickens suffered in their small cage.
“The owner exited the house when we were busy helping the chickens. She pushed us away and grabbed a chicken underneath her arm and squeezed the poor chicken,” they said.
The sangoma allegedly grabbed yellowish water and ’cast a spell’ on the searcher.
“This was very odd yellowish water as we saw it on the monkeys also. One could think how she tortures the monkeys by throwing them with this water. This is shocking to see how these animals are treated and denied basic welfare,” they said.
All the animals were removed from the property, and animal cruelty charges have been opened against the owner.
IOL