Tanzania's albinos are being 'hunted down like animals' as greed
for money and influence drives families to turn on their own loved ones in a
trade allegedly fuelled by some of the country's most powerful people.
It is believed albino body parts will bring a person wealth, or
luck - and for that, people are willing to pay 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.
People with albinism are regularly attacked by people who chop
their limbs off - an act which either leaves them severely mutilated, or
dead.
Albinism, a hereditary genetic condition which causes a total
absence of pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes, affects one Tanzanian in
1,400, often as a result of inbreeding in remote and rural communities, experts
say.
In the West, it affects just one person in 20,000. 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. So sad.
Source: DailyMail
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