Tanzania – praag.org

The mortal danger of being white in Africa

A lucrative black market exists for the body parts of albinos, who are believed by some to possess magical powers that can bring good luck. But as police in Tanzania crack down on the grisly trade, activists in neighbouring Malawi say attacks have spiked.

Albinos are living in fear of being killed in Malawi, where their body parts are increasingly being sold for use in traditional rituals that promise to deliver wealth and power.

Three albinos – people born without pigmentation – have been killed and mutilated in the southern African country in the first two months of the year, the Association of Persons with Albinism in Malawi (APAM) reported.

There were two albino killings in all of 2014 and one in 2013.

One woman was found in January with her head, arms and legs cut off, the government said. Police are also searching for several individuals reported missing.

“We are hunted like animals,” said APAM president Boniface Massah, who campaigns for the rights of Malawi’s 10,000 albinos.

The body parts are often believed to be sold in neighbouring Tanzania, where more than 70 albinos have been killed since 2000.

Tanzanian authorities announced in January that they would crack down on the gruesome trade. They banned the activities of witch doctors who promise to bring clients good luck and fortune to prevent them from making ritual use of albino body parts.

While the practice is condemned by the overwhelming majority of traditional healers, a lucrative black market exists for the body parts said to possess magical powers.

A set of albino body parts – including hands and feet, genitals, ears, tongue and nose – sold for $75,000 in Dar es Salaam recently, according to Tanzanian police.

But after Tanzania began its efforts to curb the practice, activists say the criminals moved to Malawi.

“Those who are in the business of selling body parts of albinos … have established a market in Malawi, because it has become tougher to do business in Tanzania,” Massah said.

Police have not commented on the matter. Several people have been arrested in connection with the recent killings of albinos but they do not include any foreigners.

The spike in the number of slayings has scared many parents of albino children to such an extent that they have taken them out of school, the activist said.

“You are no longer sure you can trust even friends or relatives,” Massah added.

Albinos face threat in many African countries, ranging from Kenya and Burundi to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal.

The rights group Under The Same Sun (UTSS) lists 140 killings, as well as 219 mutilations and other attacks, against albinos in 25 African countries between 1998 and 2015.

The belief in the magical powers of albinos is based on the idea that the birth of a white child to black parents is a supernatural event.

Such a birth can be seen as a curse from the ancestors, and some east African ethnic groups – such as the Sukuma or the Maasai – traditionally killed albino children at birth, according to UTSS.

Among other African ethnic groups, however, albinos enjoy respect.

The Yoruba of Nigeria and Benin believe albinos are under the protection of the god Obatala, who is believed to have created them and to like the colour white.

Belief in magic is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa. Malawian newspapers, for instance, frequently run articles on villagers being accused of witchcraft. It is not uncommon to hear stories of politicians or businessmen having accumulated wealth and power through magical means.

Being an albino was difficult in Malawi even before the killings increased. “Being white in a society where the majority is black is not easy,” said Massah, 32, who recalls being called names at school.

Many children have worse experiences, with their fathers abandoning the family because they suspect their wives of cheating on them with a white man, he said.

There have been no known convictions in Malawi for murders or other attacks against albinos in the past four years, according to Massah. In Tanzania, only about 10 people were convicted since 2000, local media reported.

“I am a teacher. I am contributing to the development of Malawi like any other person,” said Emmanuel Mkwapatira, a 43-year-old albino who lives in the southern town of Balaka.

“Is this not enough evidence that people with albinism are also human?”

Source: timeslive

SA Missionary found dead in Tanzania

A Pinelands resident who went missing while on a trip to Israel to do missionary work has apparently been found dead in a cemetery in Dar es Salaam.

Authorities in Tanzania are expected to carry out a post-mortem on his body on Monday.

On Saturday a message about what happened to Mark Wilson was posted on a Pinelands safety group on Facebook.

It said that Wilson had left Cape Town shortly before Christmas and had been on a missionary trip to Israel.

The post said he was reported missing 10 days ago, and was then found dead in Dar es Salaam.

On Sunday the spokesman for the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, Clayson Monyela, said the department had been unable to confirm Wilson’s death with foreign authorities over the weekend, but should have more information by Monday.

On Sunday, a friend of Wilson’s said a post-mortem was to be undertaken because it was not yet clear what had happened to him.

The friend declined to comment further, saying she felt this would be up to Wilson’s relatives, who were “very upset”.

Wilson’s last post on Facebook was on January 7, the day he apparently went missing. The post said: “I was wondering what has been happening in the world while I’ve been missioning in Africa. Same old idiocy it seems… Now targeting TODDLERS in the UK?!”

Source: Cape Argus

Tanzania: ‘Albinos killed like animals’

In the rural areas of Tanzania, men, women, and children with albinism–a lack of pigment that makes them appear glaringly white–are waging an extensive human rights campaign against communities who routinely attack them for their hair or body parts, used in potions to attract wealth and good luck.

As BBC explains, the tradition of cooking albinos into potions is not a new one in Tanzania, and the parents of albino parents are forced to fear that, at any minute, a band of men may kidnap their children to sell to wealthy sectors of society for use in witchcraft.

It is estimated, the BBC notes, that 30,000 albinos live in Tanzania. Within that population, the number of violent attacks resulting in death in recent years is alarming: more than 70 albinos killed for their skin and hair. Of those, the BBC reports that only ten convictions have occurred, which activists attribute to the fact that well-connected and wealthy people were behind the attacks.

One activist, Mashaka Benedict of the Sengerema Albino Society, tells BBC that educated and wealthy people in rural areas are the greatest threat to albinos. “How can a poor man offer $10,000 [£6,300] for a body part? It’s the businessmen and politicians who are involved,” he alleges, noting the lack of logic in the claim that albinos bring money and good luck. “If that’s the case, why are we not rich?”

In May, one of the few cases of justice regarding albino killings made it to court in Tanzania. Two men were arrested for hacking an albino woman to death and taking her left leg, two fingers, and a nail from one of her thumbs. The men were witch doctors, and that case was the first of its kind since February 2013. Officials responded to the outrage in the albino community by telling the BBC that witch doctors cannot practice without a certificate from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which–of course–prohibits murder for the sake of herbalist tradition.
The most dangerous year for albinos in Tanzania has been 2014.

Following the May killing, August went on record as one of the most violent months for albinos in years. As Vice notes, within weeks of each other, a 15-year-old girl lost half her arm to attackers working in the service of a witch doctor, while a man was killed for defending his albino wife as attackers took away half her left arm. The three men who attacked the teen girl were arrested. A witch doctor was reportedly offering up to $600 for the girl’s arm.

Few outside Tanzania’s albino community have done much to help prevent these attacks. Police tell the BBC they have tried to prevent them and raise awareness against killing albinos, but their public service announcements and government decrees rarely get to the rural interior of the nation. At least one foreign nation, Turkey, has committed money to the fight to protect albinos in Tanzania–both from witchcraft-based attacks and from the heightened health risks a lack of pigment brings them in a hot African nation.

Source: Breitbart.com

Six Tanzanians busted for heroin

Six Tanzanian nationals, five men and one woman, will be appearing in the Randburg Magistrates’ Court on 26 September in connection with a 19kg-heroin bust made by the Hawks special investigation unit in June.

The heroin was estimated to be worth R23-million and was allegedly produced in Canada before making its way to South Africa, where the suspects were arrested with the drugs in Vereeniging.

Heroin is one of the main ingredients in ‘nyaope’, a highly addictive and destructive concoction which also contains cannabis, crystal methamphetamine, and other psychoactive drugs.

Rat poison and swimming pool chlorine is sometimes added to the mix as well.

The drug is fast gaining popularity among black youths in South Africa and is a grave cause for concern to anti-drug lobbyists due its damaging nature.

Albino woman murdered ‘for potions’ in Tanzania

Two witch doctors have been arrested after an albino woman was found murdered and mutilated in Tanzania.

Police in the Simiyu region said the 40-year-old victim was murdered overnight earlier this month and the attackers had hacked off her left leg, the index and middle fingers of her left hand and part of her left thumb.

Photographs of the murder scene outside her home were too graphic to publish.

People with albinism are often subjected to violent attacks in the country, where they are known as the “zeru zeru” or ghosts.

The condition is heavily stigmatised and families who see it as a curse have known to kick relatives out of their homes.

But sufferers are also a target for traditional healers, who harvest body parts to make potions for wealth, success and even election victories.

Albinism campaign group Under the Same Sun said the latest victim was the 73rd person with albinism to be killed in Tanzania since the year 2000 and 67 others have suffered violent attacks during the same period.

The group’s founder and chief executive, Peter Ash, said: “The life of yet another person with albinism has been snuffed out.

“[The woman] was mutilated and violated in the most barbaric way, because of the fatal discrimination people with albinism face in Tanzania.

“Her screams must rouse the international community to demand the Tanzanian authorities locate and punish her killers to the fullest extent of the law.

“Anything less is a flagrant miscarriage of justice, perpetuated on the most vulnerable.”

The two arrested witchdoctors, a 45-year-old man and 52-year-old woman, were reportedly known in the victim’s village and police are also hunting for her boyfriend.

Police said the woman had two children and had sent her eight-year-old daughter to a witch doctor on the day of her murder for herbal medicine to treat her backache.

The healer reportedly told the girl not to return home to her sick mother because it would stop the “medicine” working and instructed her to stay with her aunt.

That night, the woman was murdered and her grossly mutilated body was discovered outside of her home by her niece the next morning.

Under the Same Sun is campaigning for better protection for people with albinism in Africa and wants to see witch doctors banned as they claim current regulation is not working.

The group is concerned that attacks will increase in the run-up to elections in October, when the demand for potions made from albino body parts is expected to increase.

Killings have been less frequent in recent years and the Tanzanian government, which has one albino MP, has been trying to address the problem.

Source: The Independent

Poachers kill 41 Zim elephants with cyanide

Police in Zimbabwe arrested six black men accused of using cyanide to poison elephants on Friday, according to local media reports.

Authorities recovered about $120,000 worth of ivory from 17 tusks, the Zimbabwe Chronicle reported. The police fingered Farai Chitsa (34) as the suspected mastermind.

The suspects laced salt licks at watering holes frequented by the elephants with cyanide.Chitsa supplied the poison.

“What they were doing is very cruel because it does not end with the death of the elephants,” Chief Inspector Muyambirwa Muzzah told the Chronicle.

“We have what we call the fourth generation effect due to the potency of cyanide as a poison. Animals that feed on the dead elephants will die, and those that feed on the dead animals will also die.”

The elephants were found in the Hwange National Park after a ranger heard gunshots.

The park’s spokeswoman Caroline Washaya Moyo told BBC News that tests would confirm cyanide was in fact used to kill the animals.

That 41 elephants have died makes it Zimbabwe’s worst case of poaching, Moyo said. Elephant poaching in Africa is on the rise and ivory trade has doubled since 2007.

Poachers kill 30 elephants in Tanzania every day.

A report from CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) said poachers killed 25,000 African elephants last year.

SANDF readies to fight M23

Hundreds of South African soldiers deployed to the volatile east of the Democratic Republic of Congo are likely to be involved in violent clashes with thousands of battle-hardened rebels.

The UN has given the M23 rebels 48 hours to demobilise and surrender their weapons. The deadline expires today and if the rebels fail to meet it the UN intervention force of which the South Africans are a part will move in to forcibly disarm them.

About 900 South African soldiers from the SANDF’s 6 Infantry Battalion are deployed in and around the town of Goma as part of the UN’s intervention brigade.

Tens of thousands of civilians are said to be fleeing from war-ravaged Goma in anticipation of the blood-letting likely to come.

The South African troops are trained to deploy into battle zones from helicopters.

The brigade was formed to engage and attack the M23 rebels terrorising the region, allegedly with the backing of the Rwandan government and military.

The brigade, which also has troops from Malawi and Tanzania, will from today attempt to disarm the M23 rebels, an action they say they will oppose.

There is growing concern that there will be a repeat of the killing of South African soldiers as in the Central African Republic earlier this year. Dozens of SANDF soldiers were wounded and 15 killed in clashes between South African paratroops and Seleka rebels in March.

SANDF spokesman Brigadier-General Xolani Mabanga said: “We have competent troops with the equipment necessary to carry out their tasks.”

But Mabanga admitted that not all the troops were in place.

“As to when this will happen it is difficult to say … It is a highly sensitive operation, not only involving us.”

Institute for Security Studies senior researcher Andre Roux said: “The [South Africans] underwent three months of combat-readiness training and two months of mission-readiness training, and are now training intensively for combat operations.

“Deployed with specialist weapons capabilities, such as heavy machine guns and armoured vehicles, the troops are a very capable fighting force that can defeat the rebels.” – timeslive.co.za

Bush follows Obama to Africa

It’s not often that Africa sees a visiting American president, much less two. But as President Obama travels across the continent next week, so will his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Mr. Bush, who made fighting AIDS in Africa a top goal of his administration, will take a trip there — his third since leaving office — as part of a program to combat cervical cancer. He will leave late next week for Zambia, where he will help refurbish a clinic, and then head to Tanzania, where his wife, Laura Bush, is organizing a forum for African first ladies.

Mr. Bush will overlap briefly on July 2 with Mr. Obama in Tanzania, the last stop on the current president’s itinerary after Senegal and South Africa. There are no plans for the two to see each other, but Michelle Obama has agreed to attend the first ladies’ forum with Mrs. Bush in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city, to promote women’s education, health and economic empowerment.

“It’s coincidental that we have two American presidents on the continent at the same time – in the same country at the same time – but it’s indicative of a continued commitment, which is great news,” said Hannah Abney, communications director for the George W. Bush Presidential Center. “It wasn’t planned. It really was coincidental. But we’re really excited about it.”

Africa was a personal priority for Mr. Bush during his presidency, overshadowed by Iraq, terrorism and other issues but one of the few areas where he drew praise across party lines. His Millennium Challenge program steered billions of dollars in development aid to countries that committed to reform. His President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or Pepfar, directed lifesaving drugs and other care to millions with H.I.V. and was called the largest humanitarian health effort ever undertaken by any country.

As a result, Mr. Bush remains more popular in Africa than at home, and he has taken pride in his efforts there. He devoted a substantial part of his newly opened presidential museum, outside Dallas at Southern Methodist University, to an exhibit about Pepfar. And global health has been a top focus of the former president’s public policy institute.

Teaming up with Pepfar, the United Nations and pharmaceutical companies, Mr. Bush helped form Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon, which is devoted to curbing cervical cancer and breast cancer. It started in Zambia in 2011 and expanded to Botswana in 2012.

Last year, Mr. and Mrs. Bush helped refurbish a clinic in Kabwe, Zambia, where nearly 30,000 women have been treated since, according to his presidential center. They will help renovate and reopen another clinic on July 1, this time in Livingstone, Zambia; a team of four Southern Methodist University students left Friday to work on the reconstruction.

Mr. Bush’s interest in Africa coincides with that of his own predecessor, Bill Clinton, who has spent much of his own time since office on programs to provide help there. “It was a critical part of his administration,” Ms. Abney said of Mr. Bush. “It’s also something he and Mrs. Bush feel personally about. They feel a commitment to the people there.” – NYT