Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Sat Nov 15, 2008 6:12 pm Post subject: Outbreak of Albinos being hacked to death by witchdoctors. |
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Albino Africans live in fear after witch-doctor butchery
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The Tanzanian MP recounts the appalling story in a tone of sadness and horror. A woman named Salma had been told by her family to dress her baby entirely in black and to lay the little girl in a hut, alone. 'The mother didn't understand, but she obeyed the elders,' said Al-Shaymaa Kwegyir.
'Some hours later, unknown men arrived and went straight to the hut. They used a machete to cut off the child's legs. Then they slit her throat and poured the blood into a pot and drank it.'
Amid a spate of at least 29 murders of albinos in Tanzania, Kwegyir, herself an albino, has become one of the country's most prominent political campaigners on the issue. She cited evidence that killers acting for witch doctors are turning to cannibalism alongside their quest for lucrative body parts as magic charms.
Buyers from as far away as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Kenya and Uganda believe the legs, genitals, eyes and hair of people with albinism can help them achieve instant wealth. The youngest victim so far was seven months old.
Kwegyir, 48, had met Salma in her village in the Mwanga district near Kilimanjaro. 'It is the first cannibalistic case, but in other respects it is a classic example. Someone in the extended family who has links with a witch doctor will help set up the abduction or killing. These murders are inspired by ignorance and greed. An albino hand is selling for two million shillings (�1,200),' she said.
Despite government moves to protect albinos - who have an inherited gene disorder which results in a lack of pigmentation and can produce near-blindness - the targeted murders, which were first reported a year ago, are continuing. 'Two weeks pass and we think it's getting better, then another one happens,' said Kwegyir, who was appointed to parliament in April by President Jakaya Kikwete in order to combat prejudice.
The murders are the result of seemingly conflicting beliefs spread by witch doctors, who are still consulted by many of Tanzania's 40 million-strong population, that albinos are either cursed or have supernatural properties. Some fishermen believe that, if they weave the red hair from an albino into their nets, fish will be attracted by the golden glimmer. Miners for gold, rubies and tanzanite are reported to pay large sums for juju (magic) amulets, which they wear around their necks or strapped to their arms and which are made up with a potion mixed from albino body parts. Others are said to bury the bones of albinos in the ground they are digging.
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This story has been surfacing from time to time on the BBC and today an article in The Guardian.
Really f&%@ed up. So horrific. |
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itaewonguy
Joined: 25 Mar 2003
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 5:38 am Post subject: |
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Africa and parts of the Middle East need SERIOUS HELP!!
Africa I�m thinking mandatory vasectomies at birth for the boys then maybe 100 years from now, G7 countries form an alliance and go in and take over the whole continent in the biggest war since World War 2. And then reform the nation... and the Middle East. Well it�s a waiting game for them, once the oil runs out they will not be a worry... |
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