at least 19 albinos, including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year, victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts.
Many people in Tanzania — and across Africa, for that matter — 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 strikes about 1 in 3,000 people here.
“Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are now marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are promised to make people rich.”
News from today’s Africa generates one shock after the other: Darfur, genocide, Kalashnikov-bearing children marching to war, famines as regular as the monsoons, the ravages of AIDS, rapacious dictators, gang rape as a political tool, the Janjaweed wreaking destruction from the backs of camels. Even nature weighs in with tsunamis, floods and earthquakes.
We in the West sit in the comfort of our bubble and tut-tut as news of the latest atrocity rolls in, but the truth is we’re exhausted. We can’t absorb it all; the tragedy of post-Colonial Africa seems larger than our comprehension. Photojournalism and reportage , history in the making, only adds to the feeling of helplessness.
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