70-Year-Old Woman Killed for Suspected Witchcraft

A post at ZambiaSossa cites an example of how entrenched suprstition can be in parts of Zambia:

Funny how primitive zambia is in certain areas of the country. this is a story told to me by someone who was in zambia recently.
the guy was a graduate at nrdc in lusaka and thus has experience in agriculture and all.

around sometime last yr, he went to visit his grand parents in north western province where the luvale live.
he stayed there and saw people were feeding on cassava every day. he posed a question and wondered why there wasnt maize out there, they told him that it couldnt grow.

he knew that the people didnt know how to go about certain climates and so he tried his math and a miracle happened. the maize grew and he harvested lots of bags of maize, he even planted some bananas that were growing really good to the amusement of his neigbours.

this man became the talk of town, all of a sudden people said ''buloshi'' that he was a witch who grew maize where it couldnt grow, so when the man left the village he left the bananas growing and left instructions on how to make sure they grow but none followed his math.
so when the bananas died, it was confirmed, they said buloshi (witch) because the trees died when he left.

Is this a myth or urban legendary tales meant to poke fun at the rural people?
It's a genuine topic,
The Times of Zambia (Ndola) reports: "A 70-year-old woman of Zambezi was beaten to death by eight people who suspected her of being a witch."

Very sad.