And now more than ever, Tanzania’s Albino population are facing increasing danger with dozens murdered in the east African country since 2000.
Authorities and experts say Albinos in the country are not only suffering increased discrimination but daily danger fuelled by a belief that their body parts fetch between $600 and $75,000 for a whole corpse.
Sometimes victims are attacked by their own families while others are targeted by strangers for limbs or other body parts in a brutal and mistaken belief that their body parts have magical powers.
The plight of the nation’s Albino population, which affects roughly around one in 1400 people, was again brought into the spotlight earlier this month when police offered a reward for information leading to the recovery, dead or alive, of an albino girl feared to have been kidnapped for her body parts.
Four-year-old Pendo Emmanuelle Nundi was kidnapped in December last year from her home in the northern Mwanza region, but has yet to be found despite several arrests.
Body parts from albinos are sought after in Tanzania for witchcraft, and at least 74 albinos have been murdered in the east African country since 2000, according to United Nations experts.
“We continue to call on the public to give us information. We have promised three million shillings (around $1,700) for any information that can lead to finding Pendo, dead or alive,” Mwanza police chief Valentino Mlowola told state-run TBC1 television said.
Since the girl’s disappearance, police have arrested 15 people — including the girl’s father and two uncles and the government has also imposed a ban on witchdoctors and has launched an education campaign to end the killing of albinos.
In August, a UN rights expert warned that attacks against albinos were on the rise because Tanzania’s October 2015 presidential election was on the horizon, encouraging political campaigners to turn to influential sorcerers for help.
Last May Tanzanian police arrested two alleged witch doctors after an albino woman was hacked to death for body parts.
Munghu Lugata, 40, was killed after her attackers hacked off her left leg above the knee and chopped off three fingers according to rights group Under The Same Sun, which campaigns for the rights of albinos.
In Tanzania, albinos are often targeted, attacked or killed due to a widespread belief that charms made from their body parts bring good fortune and prosperity.
“Witch doctors tell their clients that the skin, hair, blood and organs of persons with albinism when combined with their secret magic potions guarantee success, wealth and election victory,” the group said in a statement.
Albino sufferers are not only discriminated against and persecuted in Tanzania but in many African countries, rights groups claim.
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