Hundreds of children are being kidnapped and murdered in Uganda every year because of the thriving child sacrifice business in that East African country, a pastor has revealed.

What is utterly shocking and horrific in the West is a common practice in Uganda where businessmen and politicians pay big money to witch doctors who sell them body parts of children, believing these will bring them good luck, local pastor Peter Sewakiryanga told a CBN News team that recently visited Kampala, Uganda.

"Witch doctors believe that when you kidnap a child you get wealth, you get protection," said the pastor who runs Kyampisi Childcare Ministries, a Christian organisation that seeks to end child sacrifice in Uganda.

Describing the gruesome ritualistic killing of children, Sewakiryanga said the witch doctors first cut the neck of the child. "They take the blood out, they take the tissue, they cut the genitals or any other body organs that they wish that the spirits want," he said.

Child sacrifice has become such a serious and widespread problem in Uganda that government authorities have set up an agency primarily tasked with stopping the practice.

Mike Chibita, Uganda's top law enforcement official, told CBN News that superstition and the desire to get rich quickly are to blame for the rising cases of child sacrifice in his country.

"The connection is that these witch doctors come and tell people who want to get rich that in order to get rich you need to sacrifice human blood," said Chibita.

Ugandan lawmakers like Komuhangi Margaret are set to draft specific laws targeting those involved in child sacrifice.

"Every Ugandan must wake and and say, 'No to sacrificing our children'," said Margaret, a member of Uganda's parliament. "Our children are the future of this country."

However, some Ugandan politicians continue to believe in supernatural ways to get them elected to office.

During the election campaign in 2015, Uganda saw a significant increase in child sacrifice cases as desperate political candidates tried to gain advantage at the polls, Breitbart reported.

"Child sacrifice cases are common during election time, as some people believe blood sacrifices will bring wealth and power," Shelin Kasozi told Reuters.

Moses Binoga, coordinator of the anti-trafficking task force at the interior ministry, said they found mutilated bodies of children and adults, some with hearts or livers ripped out. In two cases reported last year the victims' heads were missing, he said.