Albino boy loses hand in latest attack

Dar es Salaam

The boy, Baraka Cosmas, was sleeping at home with his mother in the village of Kipenda, in Tanzania's south-western Rukwa region, when a gang of assailants stormed in late Saturday, regional police commander Jacob Mruanda said.

"The gangsters got hold of the victim's mother, Prisca Shaaban, and beat her severely after she refused to hand over the boy," Mruanda said.

"The assailants later used machetes to cut off the boy's right palm and walked out," he added, saying the boy and his mother were being treated in hospital.

WITCHCRAFT

The latest assault comes days after Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete blasted the wave of killings and attacks against albinos, whose body parts are used for witchcraft, as a "disgusting and big embarrassment for the nation".

During the week a court in the northwest of the country also sentenced four people to death for the murder of an albino woman.

According to a UN expert, attacks on people with albinism have claimed the lives of at least 75 since 2000, and that albino body parts sell for around Ksh54,851, with an entire corpse fetching Ksh6.8 million.

Albinism is a hereditary genetic condition which causes a total absence of pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes. It affects one Tanzanian in 1,400, often as a result of inbreeding, experts say.