Albinos face new threat in Tanzania

Albinos in Tanzania have more serious concerns to worry about these days than the scorching heat of the sun.

Discrimination against albinos has turned into a disturbing crime with 19 albinos, some of them children, killed and mutilated for a growing trade of albino body parts, the International Herald Tribune reported on Sunday.

Local authorities have drawn up a list of all the albinos in the country, providing them with security and even escorting children to school. The report quoted a Tanzanian government spokesperson as saying that the killings were “anathema to what Tanzania had been striving toward” and “serious because it continues some of the perceptions of Africa we’re trying to run away from.”

IHT wrote that albinos have become prey to witch doctors who are marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that promise to make people rich.

 

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.