An angry mob in Madagascar has lynched two European men and a local fellow, who are suspected of murdering a child to harvest his organs, authorities say.

Hundreds of men roamed the streets on the tourist island of Nosy Be Thursday, in search of a Frenchman and a Franco-Italian who reportedly harvested the genitals and tongue of an eight-year-old boy.


“Rioters launched a manhunt and killed the Europeans,”' in the early hours of the morning, said the deputy commander of the paramilitary police, Guy Bobin Randriamaro.

Witnesses said the two Europeans were paraded through villages, beaten and burned on a beach.

“They confessed under torture [by the mob] to organ trafficking,” Randriamaro added.

The protesters had found human organs in a fridge in the building where the Europeans were staying, local media reported.

Hours later, a local man suspected of involvement was dragged from a vehicle and thrown in a fire on the popular tourist Ambatoloaka beach.

The lynching occurred after residents discovered the boy's lifeless, mutilated body on a beach.

France and Britain urged their nationals against travel to the major tourist destination near the northwest coast of Madagascar.

Mob justice is a common practice in Madagascar.