It has been discovered that families producing albinos in Tanzania have been selling them off to witchdoctors and ritualists.
There had been a global outrage against the danger posed to the albinos with Tanzania having the highest number of killings and attacks of albinos in Africa and sales of their body parts, according to a report by the UK Daily Mail.
The report further showed that the rise in the trade of human parts of albinos is being encouraged by the country’s most powerful people.
Albinos are human beings who lack melanin, the pigment that gives human beings colour. Black people have melanin, but in the case of albinos, they suffer from a total lack of melanin.
Family members in the country now sell off their children to those who believe that body parts of these special people will bring a person wealth or luck.
The report states that people are ready to pay up to between $3,000 and $4,000 for a limb, or as much as $75,000 (about £50,000) for the full human body.
The report said: “since people began collecting records of the attacks, there have been 74 killings and 59 survivors of attacks. Even the dead are not safe: 16 graves have been robbed. And these are only the recorded cases.
“The most recent case saw four-year-old Pendo Emmanuelle Nundi abducted from her home in December. Her father and uncle were both arrested in connection with her disappearance, but – despite rewards offered of £1,130 and promises of swift action from the police – she has not been found.”
A victim, Mwigulu Matonange, was said to be 10 when he was attacked by two men as he walked home from school with a friend.
They chopped off his left arm, before disappearing back into the jungle with their ‘prize’, Daily Mail said, quoting the boy as saying: “I was held down like a goat about to be slaughtered,” he told IPP Media after the February 2014 attack.
Another case was a 38-year-old woman with albinism who was attacked with machetes by her own husband and four other men while she was sleeping in February 2013, while her eight-year-old daughter watched. Her husband took her arm away.
“Those living with albinism in Tanzania fear the lure of making a couple of hundred dollars – three times the minimum wage earned in the country – is placing them in danger, even from their own families,” the report said.
Josephat Torner, who campaigns for albino rights in the country says he had also received death threats from unknown people.
He told Daily Mail: “now we can see the parents who are involved in planning the attacks. What kind of war are we fighting if parents and family do this? Who can we trust?
“You do not know who is your enemy. People with the albinism are being hunted and killed for our body parts.
“It is because people want to become rich. We are still living in danger. It is because people have different ideas.
“Some people, they are thinking they should get our body parts and sell to different places.
“The question is, why? Why now? And who is behind the killings?’Exactly who remains unknown.
“The big fishes are behind the issue. It has been really a big discussion. If I say big fish, or big people, it is those who have enough resources, enough money. People sell the body parts for high prices. So it is not really small fish behind it. It could be politicians. It could be those people.
“This year we are going to have an election. Since last year, we have been seeing attacks and killings. Already, there has been a noticeable increase.”
Recently, the report said, 15-year-old Pendo Sengerema was attacked as she ate dinner at home with her family. They hacked off her right arm just below the elbow, before running off into the dark.
But it was later learnt that a witch doctor had received an order from a wealthy client indicating that if Pendo’s arm could be provided, it would garner a price of $600.
Now, Pendo is said to be terrified and is begging to be sent away from her village to a safer place.