Albinos, Long Shunned, Face Threat in Tanzania [criminal trade in albino body parts]

The New York Times ^ | June 8, 2008 | JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

...Discrimination against albinos is a serious problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but recently in Tanzania it has taken a wicked twist: at least 19 albinos, including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year, victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts.

Many people in Tanzania - and across Africa, for that matter - believe albinos have magical powers. They stand out, often the lone white face in a black crowd, a result of a genetic condition that impairs normal skin pigmentation and strikes about 1 in 3,000 people here. Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are now marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are promised to make people rich...

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Men waited for help at the Tanzanian Albino Society office in Dar es Salaam. At least 19 albinos have been killed in Tanzania in the past year, victims of a growing trade in albino body parts.

Samuel Mluge, center, on a bus in Dar es Salaam, says he constantly feels threatened.

[the invisib1e hand]

you know what I think? I think the New York Times has Steven King as an editorial consultant.

[ConservativeMind]

So they believe they will have success if only they can be more white in some form? So they kill whites and use their body parts?

That’s a nice group of people. I wonder how they would like it if it were turned back on the blacks there.

[kms61]

good lord, that’s about the worst thing I’ve ever heard of.

[onedoug]

Primitivism in Africa. Who’d’a thunk it?

[BigCinBigD]

Kinda gives..”Kill Wittie”. a whole new meaning.

[PGR88]

They are probably allied with the witches involved in magically stealing mens’ penises - which apparantly was a big public safety problem in Central Africa a few months ago....

[The KG9 Kid]

This is the Africa that leftists insist AIDS can be controlled by education?

Sounds like it's a long way uphill just convincing them that mounting a decapitated albino's head on the prow of your fishing boat won't necessarily help you catch more fish.

[billorites]

Okay, scratch the club dates in Tanzania.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."

Be nice. One day we may need their OK.

[El Cid]

Crippees

Not only are you stuck in the sunny tropics with a skin coloring that makes you extremely sensitive to skin cancer - you have your friendly neighbors poaching you for body parts??
Poor fellows.

[redstateconfidential]

The young are often the targets. In early May, Vumilia Makoye, 17, was eating dinner with her family in their hut in western Tanzania when two men showed up with long knives.

Vumilia was like many other Africans with albinism. She had dropped out of school because of severe near-sightedness, a common problem for albinos, whose eyes develop abnormally and who often have to hold things like books or cellphones two inches away to see them. She could not find a job because no one would hire her. She sold peanuts in the market, making $2 a week while her delicate skin was seared by the sun.

When Vumilia’s mother, Jeme, saw the men with knives, she tried to barricade the door of their hut. But the men overpowered her and burst in.

“They cut my daughter quickly,” she said, making hacking motions with her hands.

The men sawed off Vumilia’s legs above the knee and ran away with the stumps. Vumilia died.”

Sawed off her legs while alive....I recently saw a story about South Africa’s street trade in body parts.Individuals and gangs roamed the cities , breaking into homes at night , or randomly attacking on the street and removing organs of living people. Just think of a society were you could count on killing someone anywhere in a city and knew that you could get the organs you removed, and to a network of ready buyers, as long as the organs were still “fresh”.
God bless Africa,..NO, NO,NO, (you can all finish then rest).

[Chode]

africawinsagain...

[ought-six]

But we’d be guilty of the most heinous of crimes if we referred to these folks who kill innocents for the alleged magical properties of their body parts primitive.

[gaijin]

AFRICAN EXPORTS:

1. AIDS

2. Necklacing (gasoline-soaked, flaming tire around head)

3. Voodoo

4. Internet scams

5. Penis-shrinking

6. Child-soldiers

7. Modern slavery

8. Albino limb-hacking/selling

9. Sleeping sickness (Tse Tse Fly) 10. Blood diamonds

11. Cannibalism

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