African albinos’ fear of butchery by witchdoctors

Last Sunday, residents of a small village in Burundi noticed a palely-coloured object - approximately the size of a sack of grain - bobbing at the water's edge of a local river.

There was, for most of them, no need for closer inspection: they knew that they had found the dismembered torso of yet another albino child - butchered alive, limbs, organs and other body parts removed and then discarded like empty packaging. The murdered boy was eight years old.

In the last five months, at least nine albinos living in the small central African country have met with a similar fate. In late February, a six-year-old albino was literally torn limb from limb when a group of men attacked his family, murdered the child and then carried off their valuable prize, which, if sold to the right people, could fetch thousands of dollars. Mercifully, though, the spate of albino murders in Burundi is not yet as prolific as it is across the border in Tanzania.

Witchdoctors say the body parts of ‘zerus’ will bring great riches if used properly

Last year, Tanzania experienced one of the most shocking such killings yet when three men broke into a bedroom where five-year-old albino Mindi Emmanuel and her 12-year-old, normal-coloured sister Mariam were sleeping.

Mariam later told reporters what happened: "In the middle of the night, three men came with a torch. They told me to shut up or I would suffer the same fate as my sister," she recalled. "I peeped from under the blanket. They grabbed her, then one of them pulled out a big knife. One of them slit her throat while the other was holding her down, she was struggling, her legs were like running in the air. They collected her blood in a tin, drank it and then cut both her legs off under the knee and clipped out her tongue. They put it all in a bag and ran away."

Fishermen weave albino hair into their nets and miners wear their body parts

The Emmanuel family buried their daughter the following day but they have to guard her resting place day and night in case grave-robbers come in search of albino bones to sell. And there is no secret about who is responsible for such terror.

Witchdoctors across central Africa are orchestrating the body-harvest. In countries like Burundi and Tanzania, and further afield in the Congo and Kenya, witchdoctors have led people to believe that 'zerus' or 'ghosts' are either dangerously cursed or that their body parts will bring great riches to those who use them properly.

Fishermen, for example, have been known to weave albino hair into their nets and miners will wear amulets filled with crushed body parts around their necks or bury albino bones in the ground they are mining. The demand is so great that in parts of Africa an albino hand sells for as much as £1,200.

Tanzania has an especially large albino population with as many as 400,000 people suffering from the genetic disorder. Unsurprisingly, albinos have always had a hard time surviving under the African sun and most die of cancer before the age of 40.

In recent years, though, the witchdoctors have made life even more perilous for those born with a lack of skin pigment. Indeed, cases have even been reported of parents killing their albino offspring at birth to avoid them suffering the misery of being continually in danger of death.

But witchdoctors have been at work in Tanzania for centuries: why the sudden surge in their malign influence? Some attribute it to an influx of Nigerian films which regularly feature witchcraft and the 'luck' it can bring; others suggest that it is a by-product of poverty-stricken miners' desperate efforts to tap into central Africa's mineral wealth. But as hard as it is to find the reasons for the spike in violence, finding a solution to the problem is even more difficult.

The most encouraging - and deliberate - move to halt the butchery comes personified in the form of 48-year-old albino Al-Shaymaa Kwegyir. Last year, Kwegyir was appointed by the country's president to a seat in the Tanzanian parliament (MPs are normally elected, but a small number of seats are in the president's gift).

Her mission is to counteract the influence of witchdoctors by educating rural Tanzanians and highlighting the plight of her country's albino population. To this end she has travelled the country - with an armed guard - spreading her message.

"People are now coming to understand that albinos are human beings like any other people," she says. "But the killers don't like it when I go to the villages because they know I am educating people."

The Tanzanian government says it strongly supports Kwegyir's efforts. A census of albinos is being compiled and almost 200 killers and witchdoctors have been arrested in a recent crackdown. To date, though, not a single one has been prosecuted - a fact many attribute to the influence witchdoctors still exert over many of the country's police officers and justice officials.

And for every minor success in the battle against the witchdoctors, there is a horrible failure. Most worrying is the theory that the clampdown in Tanzania has precipitated the spread of killings into neighbouring countries, particularly Burundi, where prosecutors say eight "simple farmers" were arrested this week in possession of "fresh" albino body parts

And even in Tanzania, there has recently been a chilling reminder of how far the albino cause has yet to come. Kwegyir had organised a demonstration in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam and attendance was good: "Many people were brave and supported it," she says.

But while making her way back from the demonstration, one pale-skinned protestor, also named Mariam, was followed home. "She was grabbed, and the assailants cut off her arm," says Kwegyir, simply. Mariam's other arm was left hanging by the tendons and had to be amputated. "Now she is living in terror because she won't be able to fight back if they come after her again."

And Kwegyir herself has said that despite her high profile and her armed guard she is not safe either. "I'm an albino and I don't know who is hunting me. They are desperate for these body parts." ·