More Than 80 Dead Over ‘Genital Theft’: How a Bizarre Rumour Has Fuelled Violence in Africa

A man goes to a restaurant for lunch. Minutes later, he is dragged outside by a crowd, beaten and left fighting for his life.

His alleged crime? The mob believed he had somehow stolen another man’s genitals. This was not an isolated incident.

A bizarre belief that a person can make a man’s penis or testicles shrink or disappear simply by touching him has triggered a wave of violence across parts of Africa. The BBC Global Disinformation Unit was the first to report the scale of the crisis, finding that more than 80 people were killed between October 2025 and July 2026 following false accusations of so-called “genital theft”.

The rumours have been reported in eight countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, Malawi and Kenya. The BBC’s death toll, however, was compiled from police data across six countries.

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The allegation sounds bizarre: a simple touch, sometimes described as a tap on the shoulder, can supposedly cause a man’s genitals to shrink or disappear.

Videos circulating online have shown men claiming that their penis or testicles have vanished or become smaller after coming into contact with strangers.

Those accused are then confronted by crowds, who demand that they return the supposedly stolen body parts.

The belief is not entirely new. The BBC reported that similar accusations surfaced in DRC as far back as 2008. The latest wave appears to have begun in the Central African nation before spreading to other parts of the region.

But the consequences this time have been deadly.

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Tanzanian mechanic Boniface Mgala experienced the violence first-hand. On 1 April, Mgala and a friend travelled to Tunduma, a city in the Songwe Region of Tanzania, to meet a client about a car sale. They stopped for lunch. Soon afterwards, a crowd dragged them outside.

“They were shouting that we had stolen someone’s genitals and we didn’t have any way to escape because there was a huge crowd,” Mgala told the BBC.

He was beaten so badly that he lost consciousness and woke up in hospital two days later. That is when he learnt that his friend had been killed. “It still hurts me deeply when I think back to the senseless manner my friend died because I still don’t know what was going on,” he added.

Mgala was left with scars on his face, a missing tooth, and a limp. He also suffers from persistent headaches and has not been able to return to his work as a mechanic. “If I had known how close I would have come to death on that day, I wouldn’t have gone into that restaurant to eat,” he told the BBC.

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The belief has emerged in places where fears surrounding witchcraft and other longstanding superstitions remain widespread. Social media has made such rumours travel fast.

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