Grim camps albinos' best shot at avoiding witch doctors' clutches

A 6 year-old from Tanzania with albinism, is treated at Global Medical Relief Fund and Shriners Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. Photo / AP

It was from neighbours that Scola Joseph first heard of two strange men in the village asking after her children. She knew immediately the moment she dreaded had come.

Packing small bags for Elijah, 3, and Christine, 5, she led them away from their home and towards the nearest town, to a government camp where hundreds others like them were living under protection.

It was the only way to keep them alive.

Buhangija is one of nine such centres in Tanzania.

This is where the country's endangered class of albino children are moved in an attempt to keep them safe from witch doctors, who claim their body parts, ground up and put in charms, can bring wealth and fortune.

Separated from their families and forced to largely stay indoors because of the effects on their skin of the east African sun, they sleep three or four to a bed. They survive on basic food rationed by their head teacher because of erratic government funding.

"These children are living like refugees and it's shameful," said head teacher Peter Ajali.

"I try to take the part of the parents and love them and keep them safe but it's not humanitarian for them to live like this."

Albinism, caused by a lack of pigmentation in their skin, hair and eyes, affects about one in 20,000 people worldwide, but is for unknown reasons more common in sub-Saharan Africa and Tanzania particularly, where it occurs in one in 1400.

At least 75 children and adults with albinism have been killed here since 2000 and more than 62 others have escaped with severe injuries following the witch doctors' attacks.

With witch doctors paying as much as US$75,000 ($112,262) 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 at greater risk with the approach of national and local elections in October. The fear is unscrupulous politicians will turn to the traditions of the witch doctors, known as mganga, and their ambitious promises.

The Government has arrested 200 witch doctors and has told MPs 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.