A young woman from the outskirts of Nicaragua died a week after she underwent an exorcism ritual in which she was tied up and allegedly hurled into flames, according to her family members.
In an interview with local media, 25-year-old Vilma Trujillo’s family members said four individuals including a man who identified himself as an evangelical pastor attacked her. The Nicaraguan woman’s relatives later found her with severe burns on her body, the BBC details.
According to the woman’s husband Reynaldo Peralta Rodriguez, church members thought she was demon-possessed when a machete-wieding Trujillo tried to attack people, the Associated Press details. For him, what happened to the mother-of-two is unforgivable.
Police arrested evangelist Juan Rocha and his companions who were allegedly involved in the exorcism, but he denied burning the woman and said it was the evil spirits that lifted
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He said the government should review the different denominations and religions in the country so that the incident will not happen again.
In a similar case of exorcism gone wrong, three children in Myanmar were beaten to death by self-proclaimed spiritual healer who said the kids were demon possessed. Lieutenant-Major Kyaw Naing Soe said the man put the residents of the village into a trance before kicking and punching the two toddlers and one eight-month-old baby until they died, AFP reports in October.
Tun Naing, the uncle of the boy who died, said the exorcist made them drink “blessed” water and made them form a circle while the ritual was being performed. Naing told the AFP that the villagers were “out of their mind” at that time and did not understand what was happening.
The exorcist was later charged with murder, grievous bodily harm, and hiding a corpse. He was jailed in Insein prison over the said