Albino boy killed, dismembered
2009-01-03 11:02
Bujumbura - Criminals with suspected links to witch doctors murdered an eight-year-old boy in eastern Burundi and made away with two arms and a leg, a rights group and an official said on Friday.
Albinos have been routinely targeted in the small central African country, where 80 of them have now been gathered in centres under the protection of the authorities.
"Three men armed with machetes attacked a family on Muzenge Hill in the Cankuzo province which included an eight-year-old albino boy," Kassim Kazungu, who heads Burundi's Albinos Association, told AFP.
Kazungu said the latest murder, which occurred on Tuesday, brought to six the number of albinos killed in Burundi since September last year, while a seventh has been missing for months.
"This time local residents were fortunately able to capture the three murderers the next day and took the law into their own hands by killing one of them before the police arrived," he said.
Witch doctors
The incident was confirmed to AFP by Nicodeme Gahimbare, the prosecutor of the neighbouring province of Ruyigi.
"Albinos live in very difficult conditions. There are now 50 gathered in Ruyigi, 12 in Gitega, five in Kirundo, seven in Cibitoke, two in Bubanza and six in Bururi," Kazungu said.
Criminals in Burundi are believed to smuggle albino organs and limbs to neighbouring Tanzania, where witch doctors use them for lucky charms.
In Tanzania, at least 35 albinos, mostly women and children, have been killed in different parts of the country in 2008, according to the Tanzania Albino society.
Albinism is a congenital lack of the melamin pigment in the skin, eyes and hair which protects from the sun's ultraviolets. Albinos are vulnerable to medical complications and social discrimination in Africa.
