REPORTER: Aaron Lewis
In this overcrowded classroom in Dar es Salaam, East Africa's young generation is learning how to read and write. But one student is finding it much harder than his classmates. 14-year-old Ali was born with albinism. He has no pigment to protect his skin or eyes from the sun and so his sight is poor. And daylight is a constant danger.
ALI (Translation): I’d like some lotion and a bicycle to ride to school and back.
But his father can't afford the protection that he needs. Sunscreen alone can cost $15 a bottle here - a small fortune for this poverty stricken family. Saidi Ali knows what lies in store for his child and the other members of his family. He has been blinded by the sun and now has severe skin cancer.
SAIDI ALI (Translation): The life of an albino in Tanzania is very hard. The sun is very strong and causes cancer like this.
He once eked out a living on the streets of the capital, but he lost his business when he lost his sight. Ali is a man of faith, but is deeply worried for his family.
SAIDI ALI (Translation): Being an albino is God’s will. It is God who decides you’ll be an albino, or lame, or anything. I am an albino and I am grateful. Gog also chose to take my sight and I am grateful. But the biggest problem is my inability to provide for my family.
Mumbi Ngugi has been more fortunate. She's stayed healthy and risen from life in the villages to become a lawyer in neighbouring Kenya's High Court but life has still not been easy. She has had to fight incredible discrimination at every step. Ngugi shows me her Swahili dictionary - the most common edition in East Africa. It reads: "An albino: thought by some to be substituted for the proper children by evil spirits."
MUMBI NGUGI, LAWYER: I am an African. And I have encountered the greatest social discrimination from my brothers, my brothers the Africans. Africans have always been discriminated against on the basis of their skin colour. For me it's always been like "Shouldn't it be easier for you to understand how unfair it is to judge somebody on the basis of their colour, or, in our case, their lack of colour?"
SHAYMAA KWEGIR, MP (Translation): They’re taught, if you see an albino, they should spit. Some even spit into their clothes. They are told, don’t go near them or you will become like them, if you touch them, your mother will give birth to one. A pregnant woman must not look at an albino, if she does, she will give birth to one of them.
Shaymaa Kwegir was appointed as Tanzania's first albino member of parliamen last year because centuries of discrimination against people with albinism had turned to outright murder. Many here believe that albinos are evil spirits and their bodies have mystical power. They're now being murdered by those who want to harness the magic in their bones.
SHAYMAA KWEGIR, (Translation): Based on what we hear, they say they want bones. There is a big market for children’s bones – children’s bones and women’s bones. It’s big business and they make a lot of money.
The trail of murder begins here in the hills bordering Kenya and Tanzania. Villages here are remote and belief in traditional magic is still strong. Witchdoctors have been selling potions made of albino bones and hair. These potions are meant to bring instant luck and wealth to anyone willing to pay the price.
These are the Bahati sisters who live in the village outside of the town of Sengerema. Of four sisters, three were born with albinism. When I first met them, nothing seemed untoward, but they are dealing with a terrible tragedy - something that no amount of tenderness from their aunt and uncle can dispel.
Three nights earlier, their 14-year-old sister Eunice was brutally attacked and killed.
SHINDA (Translation): My mum asked who was there, they said to her, “Shut up, or we’ll kill you too.”
Eunice's sister, 9-year-old Leticia, couldn't hide - she saw everything.
LETICIA (Translation): I also started to cry and Euni tried to run away. But she fell to the floor because they had hacked her in the neck. The attackers had covered themselves, all the way from head to foot. I could not see who they were. They held a machete to my father’s neck while another man cut off my sister’s leg, and they said “We’re finished, let’s go.”
This is the crime scene and the murder weapon. Just two days later - there was another shocking development. Incredibly, Eunice's parents were arrested for aiding the killers in exchange for a cut of the profits for one of her limbs.
SHINDA (Translation): They say my father sold my sister but I really don’t think he did. If he wanted to, he would have done it long ago, but instead he kept on raising us.
The arrests left the surviving girls defenceless.
SHINDA (Translation): Now my sister is dead, I hope someone will help us, otherwise we will be killed just as she was.
There have now been 45 murders of people with albinism in Tanzania. There have been hundreds of related arrests, but there has not been a single conviction. I was allowed to meet with Eunice Bahati's parents, who are being held in police custody, accused of her murder but I wasn't allowed to record the interview. They, too, claim that they're innocent.
The police say they are doing their best to end the killings and in some cases witchdoctors have been run out of villages though I found this witchdoctor's hut not far from where Eunice Bahati was killed. Inside, Masaye Lunyalula claims that his magic has protected him by rendering his hut invisible to his enemies.
MASAYE LUNYAULA, WITCHDOCTOR (Translation): I believe in the magic power of my medicine. It was passed to me by my forefathers, and it works. I use their guidance and not evil spirits.
He knows the secrets of what he firmly believes is albino magic, though he won't say if he's ever put that knowledge to use.
REPORTER (Translation): Do you believe that some albino body parts can help make people rich?
MASAYE LUNYAULA (Translation): Yes, mixed with the right herbs, an albino part can do that. It would work for someone setting up a business or someone who is opening a shop. But my work is mostly to heal people. If someone wants luck in business and he comes with those parts, I can easily mix the magic for him and send him on his way. But my main business is to heal people.
Masaye refuses to believe that his fellow craftsmen are behind the murders.
MASAYE LUNYAULA (Translation): These people are claiming that we are involved in these killings. But I totally deny that we are involved. It is totally untrue. People are saying that we are asking people to bring these parts so we can make potions for them. But we are being falsely implicated.
Despite these denials, the influence of the witchdoctors remains strong. No-one in this family would doubt their influence. Saidi Ali is just one of many people with albinism who believe there is magic somehow locked in the bodies.
SAIDI ALI (Translation): Only witch doctors have this secret knowledge. They know what they are doing and how to benefit from it. I am not a witch doctor, but I know witchcraft exists and many people turn to it.
Mumbi Ngugi, the High Court lawyer, believes that this is a perversion of traditional magic. With a single albino bone selling for thousands of US dollars, she says it's all just a deadly con game.
MUMBI NGUGI: For me, it's like an unholy marriage between capitalism - where you want to get very rich - and tradition. You borrow from your traditions and your cultural beliefs, you mix it up with the greed to get rich, to get powerful, and then you basically have an unholy mess.
Fisherman have been accused of being some of the biggest users of albino magic. Fishing requires both investment and luck - the very things that this magic is supposed to provide. Some fishermen believe that by weaving the hair of an albino into their nets or by using potions made of ground albino bones that they'll become luckier in their catch, and grow rich by pulling in full nets of fish each morning. It all amounts to a murderous get-rich-quick scheme.
In the lakeside town of Mwanza, Ibrahim Chacha is one of the most successful fishermen, so there are rumours that he used albino magic to prosper. He's incensed by both the murders and the accusations.
IBRAHIM CHACHA, FISHERMAN (Translation): Honestly, I was very troubled to hear that people are killing others to obtain their body parts and use them to gain wealth. I felt bad. I do not believe that doing this will give you wealth.
He owns a fleet of more than 200 small fishing boats and he has been on the water for more than 30 years. He says the industry has fallen on hard times and the use of magic is a misguided attempt to turn fortunes around.
IBRAHIM CHACHA (Translation): But now things have changed and fish are scarce, fishing is good if you have a plan. It is important for us to teach people modern fishing methods instead of worrying about how the use of human body parts… can increase the catch. If this is what is said and this is what is believed, it is ridiculous.
Down the road in Mwanza, there's yet another albino girl who's been attacked. Bebiana and Tindi Mbushi, play together behind the safe walls of St Mary's Residential School. Unlike many victims, Bebiana is a survivor. Her sister Tindi was only four years old when Bebiana was attacked.
TINDI (Translation): They came… we ‘d come from Father’s funeral and gone to my auntie’s house. We stayed for one day and the second night they came, they chopped off her leg. They had a torch. They told her to lie down and cut off her leg.
Bebiana also lost two fingers in the attack. Neighbours found the girls and took them to hospital. Orphaned only days earlier, Bebiana and Tindi remained in the ward for a year before Shaymaa Kwegir, the member of parliament, found them.
SHAYMAA KWEGIR (Translation): I went to pick up the children and took them to Dar es Salaam. I stayed with them a month, then returned them to Mwanza. They are doing fine. I was worried because time passed and no one came for them, so I decided to adopt them. They have been living in the hospital for almost a year.
Bebiana is slowly recovering, though since the trauma she barely speaks.
JAMES OLE MINRUK (Translation): Bebiana, tell us, are you feeling well now?
BEBIANA (Translation): I am feel8ing well.
JAMES OLE MINRUK (Translation): You’re well. Different from when the incident occurred?
BEBIANA (Translation): Yes.
JAMES OLE MINRUK (Translation): Are you afraid of people now?
BEBIANA (Translation): No.
James Ole Minruk is one of the girl's primary caretakers at St Mary's School. He says the girls were paralysed with fear and couldn't talk when they first arrived but that they have gradually improved.
JAMES OLE MINRUK (Translation): Right now, any teacher and any carer can talk to them, ask them anything, send them on errands, and that is a sign that things have changed from when they first arrived.
East Africa's residential schools have become safe havens. Here the children can play and grow up away from the discrimination and recent violence. It may be that the children are safer living away from home because in most of the murders, family members have been implicated in the violence.
SHAYMAA KWEGIR (Translation): Bebiana’s case shows it is not just parents that are involved. Her uncle was responsible for her losing her leg and fingers - her aunt’s husband. He has been arrested now. Looking at most cases, the family is involved because the network has a lot of money – the family is offered a lot of money and they accept it.
The spate of murders has shocked Tanzania and prompted large public meetings. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda urged the courts to act quickly.
MIZENGO PINDA, PRIME MINISTER (Translation): I t is the government’s responsibility that those already arrested be brought before the courts and put on trial without delay. Why wait? Isn’t all the evidence already there? Let the people hear the cases and the judges pass their verdicts.
But despite these pronouncements, even the Shaymaa Kwegir concedes the issue has not been taken seriously by the police, until now.
SHAYMAA KWEGIR (Translation): When this issue was discussed it was not taken seriously. And so when the prime minister assessed the situation, he urged the police to step up their investigations. Arrests were made but cases took too long. We request they be tried quickly and a verdict be reached. Some cases do require time, but sometimes a person is found with albino bones. Isn’t that person already a murderer?
SAIDI ALI (Translation): Many albinos are shocked by this state of affairs. We albinos are shocked… Why isn’t the government stating that those who are suspected of these crimes should either be sentenced for life or be taken away and executed? To this day, we are shocked. Now we are deeply troubled. The government of Tanzania, and the leaders of Tanzania… Maybe… maybe they don’t like us.
Until the murders are stopped, Saidi and his family have to carry a constant burden.
ALI (Translation): I may be caught, my family will think I am at school but I will have been kidnapped.
In the day, they fear the sun, and at night, they fear the shadows.
SAIDI ALI (Translation): I fear for my life and the lives of other albinos – we have many problems. If you look at the houses we live in, they are very poor. It has no gates, it has no protection. So we live in fear that someone might break the door down and chop our arms off, it’s a constant fear. We live a life of constant fear.
GEORGE NEGUS: Every once in a while, a story comes along that makes even your so-called hardened journalists shake their heads and wonder how something like that can happen in this allegedly enlightened day and age.
Reporter/Camera
AARON LEWIS
Fixer
VICTOR MUNIAFU
Editors
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
NICK O’BRIEN
Producer
GEOFF PARISH
Translations/Subtitling
JUDY NYAMATO
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN
With thanks to The Tanzanian Albino Society