Village witch doctors dancing a ritual in Tanzania With witch-doctors paying as much as $75,000 for a full set of body parts, which they bury or grind up to keep in charms, some of those implicated in the killings are members of the victims’ own families. The UN warned recently of a marked increase in attacks on albinos, which it said were now at greater risk with the approach of national and local elections in October. The fear is that unscrupulous politicians will fall back on old traditions of the witch-doctors, known as mganga, and their ambitious promises. The government has arrested 200 witch-doctors and this month a home affairs minister told MPs in parliament that murdering albinos would never win them their seats. Orders have gone out to the provinces to safeguard people with albinism in their communities. With scant resources, their answer has been to herd them into camps.
A family with albinos children in Tanzania Unable to leave the dusty compound and largely confined to her breeze block dormitory because she has no sun screen to protect her skin, Mary concentrates on reading and dreams of becoming a doctor. “If feel I’m in a safe place here. I like to help with the younger children but I hope I can go home one day,” she told The Telegraph. The centre’s small and loyal band of donors have tried to brighten the children's’ lives – the older girls were given pink paint and a full length mirror for their dormitory, the nursery now has a television so they can watch cartoons. Among its supporters is Under The Same Sun, a charity set up by a Canadian man with albinism which aims to support others affected by the condition and educate communities about them. UTSS pays for eight care workers to help the four staff funded by the government, and has to date also paid for 320 promising albino students to attend private school where their special needs, including low vision, are catered for. The organisation employs 10 albinos among its local staff, including Martin Haule, a trained accountant and teacher who heads its educational projects. Mr Haule said that even for him, a well-paid and educated professional who is married and with children, and living in the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam, the risks are very real. “I normally travel with security and separate to my loved ones and I don’t tell friends where I’m going because you never know who is a good and who is a bad friend,” he said. Mr Haule retrained as a teacher after his brother, who also suffered from albinism, died aged 39 from tuberculosis, having dropped out of school and spent much of his life depressed and drinking heavily. “He refused to go to secondary school, because trying to learn in school was so frustrating when you could not see the blackboard and the other children bullied you,” he said. “I developed my own strategies like standing close to the board or getting a friend to read for me.” He said UTSS’s community seminars had revealed the extent of misunderstanding about albinism. “Even people who have albinism do not understand that it’s just about the skin,” he said. “They too believe they are somehow not fully human.” January Makamba, one of a number of candidates vying to take over from President Jakaya Kikwete when he leaves office in October, said a better solution had to be found for people with albinism to live safely in Tanzania. “It’s an embarrassment to this country that we have to keep them in camps like this,” he said. “It’s also an embarrassment to the business and political elite that we are associated with what’s happening to them. “It’s true some of those who procure body parts operate at the highest levels of society. These are deep-seated beliefs and we must confront them as a nation.”
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