Mr Binoga said police had opened 26 murder cases in 2009, in which the victim appeared to have been ritually sacrificed, compared with just three cases in 2007.
"We also have about 120 children and adults reported missing whose fate we have not traced. We cannot rule out that they may be victims of human sacrifice," he said.
But child protection campaigners believe the real number is much higher, as some disappearances are not reported to police.
Activism
Former witch-doctor turned anti-sacrifice campaigner Polino Angela says he has persuaded 2,400 other witch-doctors to give up the trade since he himself repented in 1990.
Mr Angela told us he had first been initiated as a witch-doctor at a ceremony in neighbouring Kenya, where a boy of about 13 was sacrificed.
"
The child was cut with a knife on the neck and the entire length from the neck down was ripped open, and then the open part was put on me," he said.
When he returned to Uganda he says he was told by those who had initiated him to
kill his own son, aged 10.
"I deceived my wife and made sure that everyone else had gone away and I was with my child alone. Once he was placed down on the ground, I used a big knife and brought it down like a guillotine."
Asked if he was afraid he might now be prosecuted as a result of
confessing to killing 70 people, he said:
"I have been to all the churches… and they know me as a warrior in the drive to end witchcraft that involves human sacrifice, so I think
that alone should indemnify me and have me exonerated."
Uganda's Minister of Ethics and Integrity James Nsaba Buturo believes that "
to punish retrospectively would cause a problem... if we can persuade Ugandans to change, that is much better than going back into the past."
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Originally Posted by lnelson
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