Reuters Posted online: Friday, August 03, 2001 at 1706 hours IST Updated: , hours IST
Lagos, August 3: A single snake has been blamed for the deaths of at least seven women in a village near the northern Nigerian city of Kano, prompting residents to ask snake-charmers for help in a climate of superstition and fear.
The villagers of Rijiyar Zaki said the victims died last week after attacks by the snake, which residents said can only be seen by women and disappears immediately after striking, The Independent Vanguard newspaper reported on Friday.
Aside from the seven already killed, 19 other women are being treated by traditional snake charmers, residents said, adding that all the mystery snake's victims were all housewives. Local officials were not immediately available for comment.
"The snake charmers are showing me indications that it is the same snake that terrorised Jangusa, a neighbouring village," the newspaper quoted a prominent villager as saying. "We are consulting them (charmers) on how best to get rid of that snake before it finishes our womenfolk."
Villagers fear the snake attacks were caused by a some sort of curse placed on the village. A snake charmer in the village said his fellow charmers were doing everything possible to appease the mystery snake.
Rijiyar Zaki is the village where the late Muhammadu Maitatsine, the leader of an Islamic fundamentalist group that terrorised cities in northern Nigeria in the 1980s, fled to after the army forced the group out of Kano. Local officials told the newspaper that snake antidotes had been supplied to the three clinics in the area to complement the efforts of the traditional charmers.
