Circumcisions kill 20 boys in South Africa in 2 Weeks

[Guest fountainhall]

Here's a ghastly report from today's BBCs website.

 

Twenty South African boys have died following botched circumcisions in the Eastern Cape Province.

 

"The deaths occurred over the past 12 days, with nine of them occurring over the past 24 hours," said a provincial health spokesperson. Some 60 boys have been rescued from 11 initiation schools which have since been closed.

 

Circumcision is seen as a rite of passage into manhood in some South African communities. The practice is common among the Xhosa and Ndebele communities. However, Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini wants it reintroduced among the Zulu people because of reports that medical circumcision can reduce the chances of getting HIV.

 

The rescued boys have been taken to the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha. "All 60 of them have septic wounds and are dehydrated," said Eastern Cape health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo, reports Sapa news agency.

 

"Four of the boys even need their genitals removed completely, as it could result in death if it's not. We are just waiting for consent from their parents to perform the procedures."

BBC News - Circumcisions kill 20 boys in South Africa

[Rogie]

Unregistered surgeons or not, it is surely, in this day and age, absolutely unbelievable that what should be a routine circumcision, can kill.

 

Wilfred Thesiger was completely self-taught, having mastered the operation by happenstance. In the biography by Michael Asher, Thesiger records:

 

"They (the Marsh Arabs) did have their own circumcisers, who tied the whole thing up with a bootlace and cut the foreskin with a rusty razor and then sprinkled powdered foreskins all over the wound, and the result was scepticaemia - not every time, but I saw some appalling cases, Anyway, when news got around that if you were circumcised by me you could go off and cut reeds two days later, they'd be waiting for me at the next village I got to, and after that every village. Naturally, the professional (my italics) circumcisers fought back, spreading the rumour that Thesiger's circumcisions rendered his patients sterile. Unfortunately for them, Thesiger had circumcised a large number of adults prior to their marriages, who within a year had produced healthy offspring, thus, in the fullness of time, exposing the professionals as liars."

 

Back to the BBC article, I can only surmise that the so-called traditional surgeons in this part of Africa doing this procedure are no better, and probably a good deal worse, than witch doctors.

[Guest fountainhall]

I read that in (I think) part of China, the ceremony is carried our only in 'spirit', as it were, since Chinese as a people have the tradition of being buried whole. The circumciser only pretends to do the deed, and that satisfies the religious authorities. There is that famous scene in The Last Emperor with the eunochs marching out of the Forbidden City with their genitals pickled in jars.