Kepari Leniata, Accused Witch Burned Alive [PHOTOS]: New Guinea Mob Strips, Tortures, Burns Mom Who 'Killed' Young Boy with Sorcery

Reports confirm that an angry mob in a small Papua New Guinea town stripped, tortured, and bound 20-year-old Kepari Leniata before burning her alive on a pile of trash in front of hundreds of horrified witnesses on Wednesday, Feb. 6. Several townspeople of Mount Hagen accused the young mother of practicing witchcraft and sorcery on a young boy who had died just the day before. According to national police spokesman Dominic Kakas, over 50 people in the crowd allegedly "laid a hand on the victim" and committed serious crimes during the violent mob attack. Leniata is just one of several recent "accused-witch" killings in this South Pacific island nation.

According to several reports, neighboring relatives of a 6-year-old boy who had mysteriously died earlier in the week ultimately accused Leniata of practicing sorcery on him. Agence France-Press claims that Leniata "admitted to killing the boy, who died after being [hospitalized] with stomach and chest pains on Tuesday."

On Wednesday, Leniata (a mother of two) was pulled screaming from her hut, stripped naked, tortured with a hot iron rod, bound, and doused with gasoline before being lit on fire on a large pile of used tires and trash in the Western Highlands provincial capital of Mount Hagen. The mob then continued to throw gasoline-doused tires on Leniata as she slowly burned alive.

Hundreds of bystanders witnessed the mob's brutal slaying, including several young children. Horrific pictures of the burning were published on the front pages of the country's two largest newspapers, the National and the Post-Courier.

A photo taken on February 6, 2013 shows a young mother accused of sorcery who was stripped naked, reportedly tortured with a branding iron, tied up, splashed with fuel and set alight on a pile of rubbish topped with car tyres, in Mount Hagen city in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Kakas claims that police and firefighters tried to help and save Leniata, but they were overpowered by the frantic crowd. Kakas reports that Deputy Police Commissioner Simon Kauba blasted Mount Hagen investigators on Friday, claiming that they didn't work hard enough to break up the mob and punish those responsible. "He was very, very disappointed that there's been no arrest made as yet. The incident happened in broad daylight in front of hundreds of eyewitnesses and yet we haven't picked up any suspects yet," Kakas said, according to the New York Daily News.

Although police officers and innocent onlookers were "outnumbered" and "powerless" to stop the brutal mob, there is currently an internal investigation underway to find out exactly what proper police actions were taken at the scene.

According to the New York Daily News, "In rural Papua New Guinea, witchcraft is often blamed for unexplained misfortunes. Sorcery has traditionally been countered by sorcery, but responses to allegations of witchcraft have become increasingly violent in recent years."

And Prime Minister Pete O'Neill finds this totally ridiculous - he has since instructed police to use all available manpower to bring Leniata's killers to justice. "Barbaric killings connected with alleged sorcery. Violence against women because of this belief that sorcery kills," O'Neill said, according to the AAP. "These are becoming all too common in certain parts of the country. It is reprehensible that women, the old and the weak in our society should be targeted for alleged sorcery or wrongs that they actually have nothing to do with."

Kakas explains that Leniata's husband was the true "prime suspect" in the case, but the man had fled the province. Kakas claims he does not know if there was a relationship between the husband and the deceased boy's family.

Murder is punishable by death in Papua New Guinea, a poor tribal nation of about 7 million people (mostly subsistence farmers). However, no one has been hanged since the island's independence in 1975 (while these brutal sorcery killings continue to rise).