Mysterious:Meet Woman Whose 15 Children Were Fed To Hungry Crocodiles Over Tradition

45-year-old Buko Balguda from Duss, a Karo tribal village in southern Ethiopia's Omo Valley is a lonely woman. Why? Her seven sons and eight daughters were all killed at birth by village elders who decided that the children were cursed.
Balguda says, 'I lost five plus five plus five babies - 15 in total, I had seven males and eight females. During this time, our tribal traditions were very hard. I did not respect our traditions, so they killed my children.'
Balguda’s children were killed because they were called the 'mingi' or cursed children. The concept of 'mingi' or cursed children remains a religious belief of the Hamer and Bana people, with elders insisting that mingi infants are killed before they can bring the rest of the tribe bad luck.

The belief is still practiced and despite efforts by the Ethiopian government to ban it - cursed children are murdered every day, whether by being left alone to be eaten by hyenas, thrown to hungry crocodiles or simply starved to death in a locked hut.
Balguda’s problems did not begin with the death of her children, it stated when her her future husband failed to take part in her tribe's traditional bull jumping ceremony - an initiation rite for men which has to be completed before they can marry.
When he married Ms Balguda anyway, village elders declared that any children would be considered illegitimate and would be killed as soon as they were born.

According to a photographer Eric Lafforgue who has spent a considerable amount of time with the Karo and Hamer tribes, illegitimacy isn't the only reason for a child being declared a 'mingi'.
"Others are deemed cursed because of disabilities, because their parents didn't get permission for a pregnancy from the elders, because they are a twin and most cruelly of all, because their teeth develop the wrong way."
Lafforgue says, "If the first tooth appears in the upper jaw, instead of the lower, the child becomes mingi, this applies to the baby teeth and the adult teeth, so older children can be killed too.
"Being declared mingi almost always means death of the child,' he continues. 'The tribe will leave the child alone in the bush without food and water or will throw the child in the middle of the river full of crocodiles."
"The Karo, Bana and Hamer tribes believe evil spirits or a "curse" will bring bad luck for the community, like drought, famine, disease or even death if mingi children are not killed."
“Cruel though the practice is, The villagers fear that that if the children aren't killed, bad luck will blight the tribe. 'Most of the tribes in the Omo Valley still have strong superstitions," adds Lafforgue

Although Balguda wasn't required to kill her own child, she was forced to stand and watch as elders carried her babies away to their deaths. "It was not me who killed the babies," she remembers. "It was other people from my village. I broke the rules of our community, so they killed my babies."