Flicked with holy water, her face smeared with olive oil and poked violently in the stomach, two-and-a-half-year old Angel bursts into tears as she is rid of the evil spirits that lurk within her.

The child wriggles to free herself but her mother holds on firmly, insistent that she endures the exorcism to protect her from the sorcery that many in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) believe controls their lives.

Angel and Grace, an 11-month-old baby exorcised the same day, have been ‘saved’ by the ceremony, the devil banished, and for now they remain safe in their homes.

But tens of thousands of other children in this troubled central African country have been branded ‘child’ witches and flung out onto the streets by their families into a life of destitution, violence and abuse.

MailOnline ventured into the frightening world of the occult in this African heartland, famously described as the ‘heart of darkness’, as part of series examining the challenges facing the United Nations trying to help these children. 

In the capital Kinshasa, at the Gallicane Catholic Church, Father Alexis Katziota Mungala talks almost matter of factly of his work releasing thousands of children from the devil.

Exorcism is a daily ritual he performs in his church.

‘These witches they eat human flesh, they drink human blood,’ Father Alexis told MailOnline.

‘It is the work of the devil. Witchcraft kills the love within the child. It fills them with hate, it makes them eat their father, fight with their brother.

‘Witchcraft is part of our tradition; it is part of Congolese culture.

‘Children can become infected with sorcery but we carry out exorcisms to help children find their families again.’

Those who cannot be ‘saved’ scavenge an existence in the violent, filth-ridden city abandoned by their families and feared by their fellow outcasts.

It is estimated that up to 50,000 children have been accused of witchcraft and left to fend for themselves in the sprawling slums where 20million live.

Some are newly born or bewildered toddlers thrown into a nightmare world where survival is by crime, prostitution and violence.

Dorcas, aged eight, is typical of the ‘child witches’. Traumatised, she was found five days ago, her puny body riddled with lice, fleas and ticks.

Found by workers dedicated to helping the street children, she was taken to a care centre where half-starved she wolfed down a bowl of stale bread and a beaker of sweet tea in silence.

Although she has barely spoken since, she has said enough for the volunteers here to know her story is heart-wrenchingly common.

‘She was accused of being a witch,’ care centre director Claudine Nlandu told MailOnline.

‘I don’t know how long she had been living on the streets. She came here five days ago. She was covered in fleas, lice and ticks when we found her.

‘She did not tell us her name so the other girls called her Dorcas.’

Another is six-year-old Malengeli – stick-thin with sores all over his malnourished body - he has not been as ‘lucky’ as Dorcas and still roams the streets begging for handouts.

The litany of ‘crimes’ attributed to such children is beyond medieval in scale and almost impossible to comprehend in our society.

(dailymail.co.uk)