LONDON (AP) – Police in London have found testimony suggesting African children are being smuggled into Britain for use as human sacrifices, the British Broadcasting Corp reported yesterday, citing a leaked copy of a police study.

A spokesman for London’s Metropolitan Police said the report would be published later this month, and refused to give details of its findings. But a police statement said the 10-month survey involved speaking to members of the capital’s African and Asian communities during workshops.

Police carried out the study into child abuse within ethnic minority groups after the death of 8-year-old Victoria Climbie in 2000. Climbie, originally from the Ivory Coast in west Africa, died of starvation and hypothermia after months of mistreatment at the hands of her aunt and her aunt’s boyfriend, who are serving life sentences for her murder.

London police have also been investigating the death of a young boy, believed to have come from Nigeria, whose torso was found floating in the River Thames in 2001. The body, dressed in orange shorts, had been in the water for up to 10 days. The boy – nicknamed “Adam” by police – was believed by African experts to have been the victim of a ritual sacrifice.

Earlier this month, a London court convicted two women and a man of cruelty to a 10-year-old girl of Angolan origin who said the defendants had abused her because they thought she was a witch.

According to the BBC, the Metropolitan Police report said rituals and witchcraft were being practiced in London churches popular with some members of the African community.

Workshop participants said children were being trafficked into Britain for human sacrifice or for men with HIV who believed they would be cured by having sex with a youngster, the study suggested.

The survey’s authors pointed out that these were allegations, and they could not test whether they were true, the BBC said. But they voiced concerns that children could be in serious and possibly life-threatening situations.

William Lez Henry, a lecturer specialising in African and Caribbean studies in the department of sociology at Goldsmiths College in London, said there was a steady stream of children coming to Britain from Africa, but that he had never seen evidence of children being trafficked for sacrifice.

“There is a tradition, not only in Africa, but also in areas of the Caribbean, where people send their children over to stay with relatives, often for financial or practical reasons,” Henry told The Associated Press.