32 boys dead in South African initiation season

JOHANNESBURG: Traditional rite-of-passage ceremonies in South Africa left 32 boys dead and more than 150 hospitalized, local authorities said Tuesday, as the annual initiation season drew to a close.
Most of the teens died from botched circumcisions, an important element of the ceremony marking transition from boy to man, said Sifiso Ngcobo, spokesman for the traditional affairs ministry.
“Others died from beatings, dehydration or exposure to unhygienic conditions,” he said.
Of the deaths, 27 were in South Africa’s rural and deeply traditional Eastern Cape province, where Ngcobo said over 150 had been hospitalized for burns, serious head injuries and one case of a partially amputated penis.
The rite of passage into adulthood usually follows a bush retreat of two to four weeks and is widely seen as a test of physical endurance.
The season for the rituals lasts around six weeks, coinciding with the peak of winter in South Africa.
But each year teenaged boys die or are left mutilated.
A commission last year found over 400 boys died and half a million were hospitalized after attending the winter initiation schools between 2008 and 2013, with a major cause being complications such as infection after circumcision.