THE TANZANIA DISABILTY MP HON AL SHAYMAR KWEGYIR MEETING THE DIASPORA

She addressed tge Diaspora about the plight of the Albinos.

Known as the "Zeru Zeru", or ghosts, Tanzania's albinos have put up with the name-calling and the stigmatisation of being "black in a white skin" for years

The unluckier ones have even been kicked out of their home by relatives who see their condition as a curse on the whole family. Now albinos in the east African nation face an altogether more deadly threat.

They have become the favoured prey of traditional healers, who kill them to harvest their body parts for get-rich-quick concoctions.

In the most gruesome of a spate of albino murders in the north-west region around Lake Victoria, one corpse was exhumed with all its limbs cut off. Others have been found minus tongues, genitals or breasts.

The problem has reached such proportions that Tanzania's President, Jakaya Kikwete, used his monthly television address to announce a crackdown on the traditional healers as well as plans to register albinos to improve their safety. "These killings are shameful and distressing to our society," said Mr Kikwete in his Wednesday night speech to the nation. "I am told that people kill albinos and chop their body parts, including fingers, believing they can get rich."

Many of the people using the potions made from sacrificed albinos are thought to be miners and fishermen, hoping for extra lucrative mineral finds or bumper fish catches.

According to the Tanzanian government, 19 albino people have been killed in the past year, with another two missing presumed dead. However, disability campaigners say the real number of victims could be as high as 50, given that many deaths do not get reported in a country where albinism is still seen as something to hide or where family members may even be complicit in the killings

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