Community | November 24, 2009 | 8 comments

Deadly Skin Trade Preys on African Albinos

source: http://www.sphere.com/2009/11/23/deadly-skin-trade-preys-on-african-albinos/

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KSirys
LONDON (Nov. 23) -- East Africa's albinos have long suffered because of the color of their skin. Some are abandoned as babies by parents who regard their lack of pigment as a curse. Many more are subjected to taunts of "zeru" (Swahili for ghost) in school and on the street. But now Tanzania and Burundi's 8,000 albinos face a more horrible threat, fueled by a macabre combination of superstition and economics.

Over the past two years -- according to a new report from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies -- at least 56 albinos in the two countries have been murdered, and their body parts used by witch doctors to make charms and potions. The last known killing took place on Oct. 21, when albino hunters attacked 10-year-old Gasper Elikana in northern Tanzania. A gang of men hacked the boy to death in front of his family and neighbors -- who were wounded trying to protect the child -- before fleeing with his severed leg.



In the face of such brutality, thousands of albinos have gone into hiding, including 300 children being sheltered by the Red Cross at police-protected schools. "This is a great source of shame for the region," says Isaac Mwaura, national coordinator for the Albinism Society in neighboring Kenya, and an albino himself. "These are people who lack melanin, who are vulnerable, who nature has not treated so kindly. To then attack them and deprive them of the right to live is simply barbaric."

What sparked this outburst of targeted violence is still unclear. Some have blamed local folklore, which says albinos are endowed with mystical powers. "People think that we don't die and many other things that aren't true," says Mwaura. "Albinos are seen as a cure, because they possess something out of the ordinary."
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8 comments // Deadly Skin Trade Preys on African Albinos

  • AfricanChocolate
  • remanns
  • achromatic
  • evtezcan
    • 0
      evtezcan  

    • Read about this last night and I have to say that this is the most barbaric thing I've ever heard of, EVER. Ridiculous that people in this day and age could be so ignorant and uneducated.

    • 2 years ago
  • Progresshiv
    • 0
      Progresshiv  

    • Reminds me of what people in the U.S. say about Obama being a Kenyan Socialist, the difference being, of course, that the American primitives have less excuse for their ignorance.

    • 2 years ago
  • EdJoyProductions
    • 0
      EdJoyProductions  

    • Superstition kills.
      I work with people living with AIDS and we got an influx of Haitian children in the 90s. Many of them had been raped by men that had AIDS because they were told if they had sex with a virgin, they would be cured. So they went out and raped every little girl they could find and infected many of the poor kids.

      Ignorance is deadly.

    • 2 years ago
  • Onyx_Honda
    • 0
      Onyx_Honda  

    • It never ceases to amaze me, just how stupid people can be! This is a clear example of how dangerous ignorance is. These people are animals...

    • 2 years ago
  • KSirys
    • 0
      KSirys  

    • This is so wrong!!! People every day are fighting for equality and the stoppage of racism and these cowards are attacking their own people, because of a birth defect???

      Amazing how stupidity and cowardliness go together when someone has a weapon in their hand. Fuc**** Putos!!!

    • 2 years ago
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