Three refugees are at Mutare Remand Prison, awaiting deportation from the country. This week they went public saying they were determined to open a church for satanists in Zimbabwe to recruit more followers.
Two Congolese people and a Rwandan approached Zimbabwean authorities earlier this year by submitting an application to register satanism as a church.
They argued that satanism was their religion and it was the ‘in-thing’ back home in their countries. George Rene Lungange, Ngendo Brangsto are from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Busy Mana Thenetse is from Rwanda. The authorities rejected the application and dismissed it with contempt.
The three were once refugees at Tongogara Camp in Chipinge, Manicaland. One of them told local media that they applied to be granted the right to open a branch at the refugee camp but their application was thrown out.
Lungange maintained that satanism was their religion and they wanted to recruit more followers in Zimbabwe to “please their master.” Unlike in Zimbabwe, he said, satanism was a well-followed and understood religious cult just like Christianity in their countries og origin.
The outspoken Lungange, who also claimed to be a political leader in his country, said, from 2010, when he came to Zimbabwe as a refugee, he hoped to open a satanism church but his efforts were frustrated after the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare turned down his application.
“I approached the Tongogara Refugee camp administrator.. to facilitate my dream [of opening a satanist church] and he advised me to write a formal letter to the ministry. The reply took long until March this year when a heavy delegation from Mutare led by law enforcement agents and social welfare officials questioned me on my real intentions of opening a satanist branch in Zimbabwe. I told them my story but they never understood me. You people in Zimbabwe believe that satan is evil, yet he is just an ordinary person like you and me. And why do you persecute people who follow him?..”
He said he signed a contract form [to become a satanist] and made human blood sacrifices and occasionally performed in practices which involved witchcraft and cannibalism. “We were obliged to fulfill promises and abide by the satanism law. We were baptised by human blood,” revealed Lungange.
He talked about his achievements since joining the satanist cult including being a political party leader in North Kivu, a province in DRC. “I managed to lure more than 10,000 people into the cult and I am proud of that.”
The officer-in-charge at Mutare Remand Prison, Superintendent Reuben Zimondi, said the trio would not be charged for breaking any law. “The best we can do is to separate them from others. And we have achieved that. We are facilitating their deportation by following proper procedures,” he said.
The two other satanists, Brangston and Thenetse, were not allowed to talk to the press.
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