African nation bans witchdoctors to prevent grisly murders of albinos

Tanzania has banned witchdoctors to try and stem a surge in murders of people with albinism, whose body parts are sold for witchcraft, officials said Wednesday. The ban follows the kidnapping last month of a 4-year-old girl by men armed with machetes, who took her from her home in the northern Mwanza region. Police have since arrested 15 people, including the girl’s father and two uncles, but she remains missing. Albino body parts sell for around $600 in Tanzania, with an entire corpse fetching $75,000, a fortune in the impoverished country.

These so-called witches bear responsibility for the attacks against albinos.

Isaac Nantanga, Tanzania spokesman

As well as the ban, the government has launched an education campaign to end the killings. Albinism is a hereditary genetic condition which causes an absence of pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes, and affects one Tanzanian in 1,400, experts say. In the West, it affects just one person in 20,000. In August, a United Nations rights expert warned that attacks against albinos were increasing as Tanzania’s October 2015 national elections loomed, encouraging political campaigners to turn to witchdoctors for luck.

Africa albinism