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.
