Bishops express alarm at brutal crimes in Namibia

Published: 2007-09-27

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- The Namibian bishops have expressed alarm at crimes in the country, including "brutal and shocking murders" and the rape of infants, which they linked to excessive consumption of alcohol. "Have we lost our moral compass" and "lost touch with our traditional cultures which could serve to guide us?" the bishops asked in a mid-September statement, signed by Archbishop Liborius Nashenda of Windhoek. Mercy Brother Hermenegildus Beris, general secretary of the bishops' conference, said the butchering of women and dumping of their body parts along Namibia's main roads, thought by police to be the work of a serial killer, has horrified the nation. The head and arms of the latest victim were found in Grootfontein, a city in northeast Namibia, Sept. 17. Noting a United Nations report on the consumption of alcohol in Namibia, the bishops said, "The excessive consumption of alcohol is a symptom of a deep-seated malaise, a sense of emptiness in our society, a pervasive and explosive situation of poverty and unemployment." The report, released in June, said more than half of Namibian adults consumed an average of more than 2.5 gallons of alcohol a week.

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