Cotonou – Tomb raiders have dug up more than 100 graves at a cemetery in Benin since Saturday for what authorities suspect is a black-market trade in human organs and skulls for voodoo ritual fetishes.

The incident is the most serious case of grave-robbing in the West African state, the world capital of voodoo where most of the country's nine million residents practice a benign form of the official religion.

Authorities in Dangbo, a village 10km from the capital Porto-Novo, began an investigation after a mason working at the cemetery said he spotted several masked men digging up the graves, from which organs and skulls were removed.

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