LILONGWE, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Malawi's Inspector General of police, Lexten Kachama, Friday announced that at least 140 people had been arrested on suspicion that they were behind brutal attacks on "blood sucking" suspects.
For the past five weeks, villagers in some of the country's southern region districts have been under the illusion that they are under attack by mysterious beings that are magically extracting blood from the locals for ritual rites activities.
The villagers have since taken the law into their hands, brutally attacking both foreigners and locals suspected to be behind the mysterious blood extraction, a development which the country's local media has termed "blood sucking."
Briefing the media in the country's capital Lilongwe, Kachama said some of the arrested were believed to have been involved in the killing of two people in the country's commercial city, Blantyre.
The other suspects are believed to have perpetrated violence that erupted in Blantyre city's townships of Chileka, Makheta, Chilomoni, Machinjiri and Kachere.
He further confirmed that death toll of the victims had risen to nine, but assured that police were working tirelessly to install sanity back into the affected districts areas and bring perpetrators to book.
"Our investigations have shown that all the nine who have been killed were innocent and we want to warn all those taking the law into their own hands that they will be taken to task."
Kachama has since disclosed that the arrested suspects will soon appear before court to answer various charges.
