leptiir:

As beautiful & exotic these pictures look like, the life as an albino in Africa isn’t.

I think it’s important to know the stories behind pictures like these, we say: “a picture tells a thousand words”, but that is quite inaccurate, isn’t it?

Albinos hunted for body parts in Africa

White-skinned albinos are being killed by their own people in Tanzania, who believe their body parts will add potency to black magic rituals.

In the past week, two Tanzanian albinos have been murdered for their limbs.

Elizabeth Hussein, 13, was attacked by men with machetes and Ezekiel John, 47, had his arms and legs cut off after being shot. Their deaths bring the toll to 35 murders in just more than a year, the Independent reports.

There is similar violence against albinos throughout east and central Africa.

The killings are orchestrated by witch doctors who claim they can make people rich using limbs and blood from their white-skinned neighbours.

In some parts of the country, albino children go to school with bodyguards and the graves of albinos are piled with rocks to deter grave robbers, the paper said.

Many albinos have fled the towns and cities to the remote island of Ukerewe where they can live in relative safety.

The island is believed to have the highest concentration of albinos, or zeru, in the world.

Just read how Albinos live their lifes in Africa

African Albinos Killed For Body Parts

“Our biggest fear right now is the fear of living. If you leave work at night as an albino, you are unsure of reaching home safely. When you sleep, you are unsure of waking up in one piece,” Zihada Msembo, secretary general of the Tanzania Albino Society, told Reuters in an interview.

“They are cutting us up like chickens,” Msembo said, while pointing to a picture on a wall in her cramped office of a limbless body with the skin on its face peeled off from an incident in 2007

“We are human beings like others, we have a right to live,” Msemgo said, adding they had been turned into a commodity.

“Our country has earned a reputation that it is doing business with albino body parts, so people in other countries can kill and cross into Tanzania where there is a ready market.”

(via hijabonita)