'The crowd shouted that we'd stolen someone's genitals' - deadly rumours spread on social media

More than 80 people were killed between October 2025 and July this year following false accusations about what is termed "genital theft", the BBC Global Disinformation Unit has found after gathering data from police forces across six African countries.

The killings are linked to rumours that a simple tap on the shoulder can cause a man's genitals to shrink or disappear. They are being fuelled by widespread misinformation on social media.

"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," Tanzanian mechanic Boniface Mgala told the BBC about his ordeal in April when he was badly beaten by those convinced he was a genital thief.

His experience was similar to those in videos seen by the BBC: men claim that their genital organs - penis and testicles - have vanished or shrivelled after coming into contact with strangers and a mob then demands that alleged perpetrators return what they have supposedly stolen.

Such claims are rooted in longstanding fears and superstitions - and are not new on the continent, particularly in communities where belief in witchcraft remains widespread. Social media has amplified these fears.

The recent wave of rumours appears to have started last year in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where similar claims had surfaced in 2008.

They progressively spread across the region to Burundi, Zambia and Tanzania as well as Mozambique, Angola, Malawi and Kenya.

In Zambia, the hearsay about disappearing genitals first gained traction in March when a woman was lynched, going on to spread panic across the border in Tanzania.