Victims of a witch hunt

SAMUEL MLUGE steps outside his office and scans the pavements. His pale blue eyes dart back and forth, trying to focus. The sun used to be his main enemy in Dar es Salaam, but now the 49-year-old has others.

Mluge is an albino, and in Tanzania these days there is a price for his pinkish skin. "I feel as if I am being hunted," he says.

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

Many people in Tanzania – and across Africa – 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 affects about one in 3,000 people here – about seven times as many as in Europe and the USA.

Officials say witch doctors are marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that promise to make people rich. As the threats have increased, the government has acted to protect its albino population – a beleaguered group whose members are often shunned as outcasts and die of skin cancer before they reach 30.

The police are drawing up a list of the country's albinos to protect them. Officers are escorting albino children to school. Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete even sponsored an albino woman for a seat in parliament to show "we are with them in this," says Salvator Rweyemamu, a government spokesman.

Rweyemamu says the rash of killings goes against what Tanzania is striving towards: after years of failed socialist economic policies, the country is finally getting development, investment and change. "This is serious because it continues some of the perceptions of Africa we're trying to run away from," he says.

But the killings go on. They have even spread to neighbouring Kenya, where an albino woman was hacked to death in May, her eyes, tongue and breasts gouged out. Advocates for albinos have also reported incidences of witch doctors selling albino skin in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The young are often targeted. In early May, 17-year-old Vumilia Makoye was eating dinner with her family in their hut in western Tanzania when two men burst in, wielding 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 a book two inches from their faces to see it. She could not find a job because no one would hire her. She sold peanuts in the market, making £1 a week while her delicate skin was seared by the sun.

When Vumilia's mother Jeme saw the armed men, she tried to barricade the door of their hut. But the attackers overpowered her. "They cut my daughter quickly," she says, making hacking motions with her hands. The men sawed off Vumilia's legs above the knee and ran away with them. The teenager died.

Yusuph Malogo, who lives nearby, fears he may be next. He is also an albino and works alone on a rice farm. He now carries a whistle to blow for help. "I'm on the run," he says. He is 26, but his skin is thick and leathery from sun damage, making him look 20 years older.

Many of the country's albinos are turning to the Tanzanian Albino Society (TAS) for help. But the not-for-profit advocacy group operates on less than £7,500 a year. That's not enough for the sunscreen, hats and protective clothing that could save lives.

Samuel Mluge is the society's general secretary. He grew up with children pelting him with

chalk in class. He says he has learned to live with being constantly teased, pinched and laughed at. "But we have never feared like we do today," he says.

Al-Shaymaa J Kwegyir, Tanzania's new albino member of parliament, says, "People think we're lucky. That's why they're killing us. But we're not lucky." In equatorial Africa, where the sun is unrelenting, she says it is a curse to be born with little or no protective skin pigment.

It is no accident that TAS's office is in the grounds of a cancer hospital. Many of its members are desperately ill. The stench from the wards is overpowering – a nose-stinging mix of burn salves and rotting flesh. Many of the albino patients are covered with scabs, sores, welts and burns.

One patient, Nasolo Kambi, sits on his bed, recovering from a recent round of chemotherapy for skin cancer. His arms are splattered with dark brown splotches, like ink stains on white paper. "People say we can't die," he says, referring to a superstition that albinos simply vanish when they get older. "But we can."

The police say the albino killings are worse in rural areas, where people tend to be less educated and more superstitious. They say that some fishermen even weave albino hairs into their nets because they believe they will catch more fish.

On the shores of Lake Victoria, in northern Tanzania, albinos are a touchy subject. When asked if they use albino hairs in their nets, a group of fishermen just stared at the sand. One traditional healer, a young man in a striped shirt who looks more like a student than a witch doctor, says, "Yeah, I've heard of it. But that's not real witchcraft. It's the work of conmen."

The police are at a loss to explain precisely why there is a wave of albino killings now. Commissioner Paul Chagonja says an influx of Nigerian films, which play up witchcraft, might have something to do with it, along with rising food prices, which are making people more desperate. "These witch doctors have many strange beliefs," he says. "There was a rumour not so long ago that said if you spread blood on the ground in a mine, you'll find gold. Rumours come and go. The problem is, the people who follow witch doctors don't question them."

Mluge says whispers swirl around him whenever he walks down the street. "I hear people saying, 'It's a deal, it's a deal – let's get him and make some money,' " he says.

At home, at least, he is not an oddity. His wife is an albino, as are his five children. Some have had skin cancer in their teens.

The night used to be theirs, a time when Mluge and his fair-skinned sons and daughters could stroll outside together without worrying about

the sun. Now they bolt themselves in, peering through bars.

Just two weeks ago, while Mluge's children were sleeping, a car pulled up to their house and four men got out to look around. "I'm worried," he says. "They know we are here."

Mluge says he tried to read the licence plate, but he couldn't make out the numbers, and the car drove off into the darkness. r