On July 30, at Dango market in Faratsiho district, a man was attacked by a crowd accused of attempting to abduct a child. He died, burned alive, before anyone had time to verify anything. In the days that followed, relatives and local officials indicated he likely had mental health issues, according to a statement from the Movement for Difference and Autism Madagascar. The exact facts remain to be established. What is established is that a man paid with his life for an accusation that was never proven.
Let us first understand the fear that led to this act. Madagascar is experiencing a wave of abductions and disappearances that spares no family from worry. This fear is legitimate, it is not the fault of those who carry it, and we must commend local authorities who call for calm and invite the population to report any suspicious behavior to law enforcement rather than take justice into their own hands. This is the right instinct, the one that was sorely lacking at Dango market that day.
Unfortunately, Dango is not an isolated case. A joint statement published on July 31 by Factivistes, Ilontsera and other media education actors documents the same abuses in Ambohimena Antsirabe, Ankadindramamy, Antehiroka and Analavory. There is a Malagasy expression that captures this well: "tondro molotra sy tsaho," pointing fingers and spreading rumors. The mechanism is identical everywhere: an unverified suspicion circulates, amplifies on social networks, and transforms into popular verdict before any facts are established.
There is a saying that sums this up better than I could: "Teny zato, kabary arivo; fa iray ihany no marina." A hundred words, a thousand speeches; only one is true. The problem, in Dango as elsewhere, is that the hundredth word always arrives before the true one, and it travels faster because it frightens more.
This tragedy reveals much about another subject, more discreet but equally urgent: how a society treats those who are different. A person who wanders, who talks to themselves, who does not respond as expected, is not automatically a threat. They may have a disability, mental illness, neurodevelopmental disorder, and already carry a burden that society refuses to see until it becomes inconvenient. The day it does, they find themselves alone facing a crowd that has decided, in minutes, that they are the monster it was looking for.
I see this every day in my work with families affected by autism: a child who does not respond to their name, who flaps their hands, who cries without apparent reason in a market or bush taxi first attracts looks, then comments. But this child grows up. And it is especially adolescents and adults, those whose difference no longer makes anyone smile and whom no one coddles anymore, who are most exposed to crowd violence. It was an adult man who died in Dango, not a child. These families already live with this specific fear: that their child will become, as they grow, the one people point at before understanding.
The July 31 statement puts it better than I could: "A rumor does not only destroy truth. It can also destroy lives." Establishing facts before judging, protecting those who cannot defend themselves, learning to recognize difference without making it a danger: this is not complicated to state, only difficult to maintain in the heat of fear. Being different should never cost a life.
Mbolatiana Raveloarimisa