children as witch doctors are now turning albinos bodies into charms
and potions as the presidential election approaches,in a trade
allegedly fuelled by some of the country's most powerful people.
The albino body parts are believed to bring wealth or luck and because
of this, a lot of people are paying as much as $3,000 or $4,000 for a
limb, or as much as $75,000 - about £50,000 - for the 'full set', a
whole body in Tanzania.
There have been 74 killings and 59 survivors of attacks. Even the dead
are not safe: 16 graves have been robbed, recently, a four-year-old
Pendo Emmanuelle Nundi was abducted, her father and uncle were both
arrested in connection with her disappearance.
Mwigulu Matonange was just 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'.
'I was held down like a goat about to be slaughtered,' he said
Josephat, who himself is albino, added: '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, they 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?'
--infonaija
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