The horrifying circumcision ‘schools’ where boys as young as 11 are slaughtered in agonising ‘initiations’ & left to die

WRAPPED in his white initiation blanket with a red stripe dyed into it by his mother, Xolani set off into the mountains with five friends. They were starting a pilgrimage to join in the twice-yearly rite of passage in South Africa at one of over 1,000 initiation schools high up in rugged peaks far away from prying eyes. Gruesome looking circumcision tools recovered from an illegal initiation school used by untrained ‘surgeons’ Credit: Opera News Initiation School teenagers heading to specially built lodges in the mountain where they undergo circumcision Credit: SABC/Screenshot This is where tens of thousands of boys head for four weeks to learn their tribal history and traditions – and return home circumcised. The red stripe on Xolani’s blanket symbolises the blood sacrifice he makes and the white clay on his face and body masks his old identity as a boy. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! Beneath the blanket, the teenagers wear little or are naked to symbolise the discarding of childhood and when they are circumcised the blanket is burned. They are then presented with a new blanket to signify that they are no longer a child. Xolani would be expecting a feast to be laid on for him and his five fellow initiates with beer to celebrate their safe return. That is what the village headman promised all six as they set off into the high mountains. But the stark reality is very different. In the last 20 years, over 1,300 boys at initiation schools in South Africa have suffered agonising circumcision deaths. Most read in The Sun More than 3,500 eagerly seeking transition from boyhood to manhood have had life-saving surgery due to botched circumcisions, leading to countless penile amputations. Criminals are now setting up illegal initiation schools where “surgeons” are not qualified and use rusty spears, old knives and razor blades to slice off their foreskins. Tragic Siymthanda Nkosi, 13, taken to an illegal initiation school for circumcision against his will Credit: Supplied to media by family Boys wrapped in their felted initiation blankets Credit: Supplied They know parents will pay to put their sons through the ancient tribal ceremony of circumcision – but huge shortcuts mean it is turning deadly. Many of the boys attending the twice a year schools will not return to their villages. Gangrene, sepsis and dehydration are the main cause of death – with boys often starved and beaten and left out in the cold by swindlers who claim it is to “toughen them up”. It has been reported unwilling boys had also been stabbed, drowned or beaten to death. The law used to allow boys as young as 12 to undergo the circumcision ritual. But the soaring number of deaths meant the Customary Initiation Act raised the age limit to 16. It outlawed unregistered initiation schools, made it law that all “surgeons” are to be registered and qualified, and gave police powers to shut down illegal schools. According to traditional surgeon Andile Siko, 52, from East London, the youngest boy said to have died was seven-years-old and he knows of boys under 10 who also had died. He said: “In the cases I know of, the parents consented but their sons went to illegal schools far too young and didn’t come back. “Personally I feel the age should be not under 18. “These schools use untrained surgeons who do not have the medical knowledge to treat wounds and they become infected and the boys die painfully from gangrene and sepsis. “They deprive the boys of sleep and of food and leave them out in the freezing cold and beat them and say it is part of the toughening up and then finally circumcise them. “In most cases of death you find the boys were too young for the initiation.” Many of the illegal schools abduct boys from the street and take them to their camps and put them through the ritual then charge parents to get their boys back. Onalenna Bois, 19, was found dead on December 26, 2025, by the police and an investigation is ongoing Credit: Supplied to media by family Boys pictured at an initiation school Credit: SABC/Screenshot Last year, Siymthanda Nkosi, 13, from Witbank, Mpumalanga Province, died at an initiation school. His family claims that he was abducted against his will and theirs. The family said: “We will never get the full truth of what happened.” Xolani – not his real name – only found out his initiation school was illegal when officials raided it. He told The Sun: “I thought there would be a doctor’s scalpel but it was a very big knife and it was used on four boys before me and others after me and the cut was extremely painful. “My penis was bound up very tight and we were not allowed to drink any water as we were told that to urinate could burst the wound and stop us healing so we just tried to sleep. “I was in agony and so hungry and thirsty and then inspectors came in and the school did not have the registration documents and paperwork so they closed it down. “A nurse took off my bandage and looked at my penis and she said I had to go to hospital. They took my details and contacted my mother who met me there three days later. “They told me I had sepsis and had to remove the tip of my penis to save me.” Xolani, who is now 22 and went up the mountain in 2017 when he was just 15, said that he left his village to become a man and make his father proud. But he’s now an outcast. He said: “My father and brothers do not know what happened. I promised my mother to tell nobody and when I had healed and became 18 I moved away from the village. “I know I will never find a woman and I will never have a family. “I just wanted to be a man my father and my village were proud of. I live in Cape Town now with others like me. “I feel I have been cursed but I was told one boy at our initiation school lost his life. At least I have my life. “All I wanted was to be recognised as a man but I will never feel that.” Boys who undergo the ceremony are held in isolation in camps far from their villages. They are sworn to secrecy and risk being severely beaten or death if they reveal the rituals. While there is a growing feeling that the circumcision ritual is outdated and an increasingly dangerous tradition, the right to protect tribal culture is protected by South African law. However, most agree boys should not be dying in their many hundreds to become a man. Teenage boys in South Africa prepare for circumcision at a traditional initiation school Credit: Ground Up/photographer Masixole Feni Another blade used by so-called ‘surgeons’ Credit: wvi.org The Minister for the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs set a target of zero deaths in registered schools while police now have powers to shut down illegal schools. Last year, a Grade 12 pupil at Tiego Tawana Secondary School in North-West Province was allegedly taken to an initiation school without his parent’s knowledge for circumcision. Promising student Onalenna Bois, 19, from Dithakong East Village had just sat his final matric exams when he vanished. His body was found on December 26 last year. His mother, who was not named in a TV interview, said: “I found out after he had died his uncle took him to initiation and told Onalenna not to tell me as he knew I would not let him go.” “I feel that he was stolen away from his family. “An autopsy showed he had no food or water in him and he was covered in bruising. I don’t even know how he came to be dead.” North West Member of the Executive Council for Education Vela Motsumi vowed that “those responsible will be brought to justice”. Last year, 93 boys died at initiation schools and there were 11 penile amputations. In this year’s winter ceremony, 43 boys died and 75 were hospitalised. Many had gruesome injuries and some had amputations. More than 40 illegal schools were shut down, 180 boys rescued, and 12 abducted boys were rescued. Police have made hundreds of arrests since the Customary Initiation Act, which allows for culpable homicide charges to be brought against traditional surgeons in cases of death. School owners can also be held liable if a boy dies of abuse, dehydration or botched circumcisions and laws now exist for abducting initiates and running unregistered schools. But thousands of boys leave every year with their Abekwetha blanket from the mainly Xhosa tribe as well as the Pedi, the Ndebele and the Basotho tribes. Without undergoing the annual ceremonies known as Ulwaluko, the boys are not allowed to sit in on tribal meetings as men, or take part in social activities, or consider marriage. The rituals have been held for centuries in secret in specially built huts away from the villages where nobody except the tribal elders and the young initiates can enter. A report commissioned by the South African government recorded a shocking 322 deaths of young boys between 2021 and 2024, and thousands more were forced into hospitals. Illegal schools ignore the law that anyone aged under 16 cannot undergo the ritual and charge high prices to families to carry out Ulwaluko often with fatal or horrific end results. There are still hundreds of reports each year of illegal schools kidnapping boys as young as 12 and carrying out the surgery before forcing parents to pay to get their sons back alive. Although boys have a choice as to whether they undertake the initiation, there is huge peer pressure and those who refuse it are called Inkwenkwe or “boy” – a harsh insult. Anne Kumalo’s 16-year-old son was kidnapped when he went to a local store along with 22 other boys and taken to a remote illegal initiation school 20 miles away in Soweto. She said: “I was charged R1000 (£43) to get him back or warned he would be killed and when police found the school the boys had been badly treated, whipped and beaten.” Many initiates do not seek medical treatment for weeks having been reassured by tribal nurses that if it “drops off” it will “grow back” but then die from sepsis. Mr Velenkosini Hlabisa, the SA Minister of Traditional Affairs, said after this winter’s 43 deaths were revealed: “These figures are deeply disturbing for us. “I condemn the continued operation of illegal initiation schools which are responsible for many of the deaths, injuries, kidnappings and abuses that are reported each year. “Respect for tradition must go hand in hand with respect for the law and every initiate’s constitutional right to life, dignity and safety as we pledge to work towards zero deaths. “Every initiate deserves to return home safely and with their dignity intact and this requires all of us, parents, traditional leaders and communities to all play our full part.” In 2012 a brave initiate using only his first name Asanda spoke out after he lost his penis to gangrene in a botched circumcision ritual and was badly beaten and cast out of his village. Asanda told how he was circumcised with an unsterilised spear alongside dozens of other boys, and developed severe gangrene and was fearful he would die at the initiation school. He fled to a Dutch doctor Mr Dingeman Rijken, who said: “Most of the boys come with hopes after it is gone that it will grow back again which is what they are told by the traditional nurses but losing it comes with mental implications.” Asanda said: “I spend most of my time alone away from my village and I feel very lost.” Many survivors lead double lives because they feel the loss of their manhood to partial or complete amputation shames them so hide their injuries from families and girlfriends. They suffer severe psychological trauma and depression, isolation and suicidal thoughts and many amputees move away from their villages feeling their injuries make them outcasts. In 2013, another initiate in the Eastern Cape who was 17 at the time said: “I got gangrene and my penis had to be amputated. “My entire penis was removed. The nurse at the initiation school gave me hope and said it would grow back but I now know that’s a lie. “I will never have a wife or children or pass on my father and his ancestors blood lines to a son. I feel cursed. It is a burden I have to keep secret and to myself to protect myself. “There were boys younger than me there for initiation and the treatment was not good and the traditional nurses did not care for us as they should and treated us all like animals.” The Ministry for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs has ramped up the hunt for illegal schools. But the winter initiation schools begin again in December, and tens of thousands of parents will wave off boys from villages all over South Africa hoping they return safely as a man. It will be a long month waiting to see if they survive the month-long ordeal alone and isolated at a remote camp or return maimed for life. Comment now