HEAVY PHASES

Death in the Congo

From her hiding place in the woods outside the Congolese town of Bunia, Ruta Bonabingi watched as militiamen roasted and then ate the severed arms of her dying daughters. It was the horrifying finale to 48 hours of terror for Ruta and her family.

After pressing deep into the woods for two days without food and water, she thought she had finally reached safety when out of nowhere the militiamen, from the Lendu tribe, struck again.

After securing the rest of her family in another hiding place, Ruta crept back to the clearing to try to rescue the girls.

‘There were many people wounded from bullets lying on the ground,’ she said.

‘The Lendu were going about with machetes, chopping off one arm from the shoulder and then the other. Some people were screaming but most were silent. Then I saw them. Their arms had already been cut off.’

The militiamen calmly cooked the flesh over an open fire before throwing their victims, some of whom were still alive, into the flames. ‘They were both moving, although very weakly,’ Ruta said. 

Case Report

Patient: An 18-year-old male, high school student with positive social mobility and social adaptation. No prior mental disorders could be found in his or in his family’s history. The patient was delivered to the Psychiatric University Hospital of Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg from the urological department. Two days prior to admission to the psychiatric clinic, he drank (at approximately 12 o’clock) a cup of tea made by boiling two flowers of Angel’s Trumpet. Soon after consuming the tea, he was invited by his mother and grandmother to enjoy the afternoon in his grand- mother’s garden. In the following two or three hours, the patient was accompanied by both women who did not recognize any abnor- mality in behaviour, expression or bodily activities of the young man. Two or three hours after having consumed Angel’s Trumpet, he went to bed in the small garden house because he felt tired. He remained in the garden house unobserved for approximately 2 h. After two hours, both women saw him entering a small WC in the same garden. Approximately 20 min later, he came out with blood streaming down his whole body. They recognized that, while he was in the WC, he had amputated his penis very deeply at the root, and had also amputated his tongue, but fortunately not very deeply. The amputation was carried out by using a pair of pruning shears. Immediately after the amputations he was very anxious, but at the same time tried to calm down his mother and grandmother by saying ‘‘don’t worry, don’t worry, it will be alright, it will be alright.’’ He was immediately transported to the University Surgery Hospital, but a re-implantation of the amputated parts was impossible.

Approximately 24 h after the self-amputation, the young man was examined by a psychiatrist from our team. The patient re- ported a complete amnesia for the time between going to bed and waking up from the surgical operation in the hospital. No other psychopathological symptoms were registered during the psychi- atric investigation 24 h after the event.