Mozambique: Inhabitants flee villages afraid of insurgent attacks
Folha de Maputo (File photo)
Another albino adult has been killed in the Mueda district of Cabo Delgado, and parts of his body removed. The incident happened last week when the Dissuai resident was accompanying his wife by bicycle to a health unit to have a tooth extracted when he was approached by a stranger who offered to transport the couple by motorcycle to a traditional doctor who would be able to perform the procedure.
According to witnesses and a police source quoted by the Diário de Moçambique, the unknown assailant simulated a fault with the bike and attacked the couple. He neutralised the woman with a machete blow and then murdered the man before cutting off his arms and fleeing.
According to the Diário de Moçambique report, the killer before fleeing returned the bloodied motorbike to its rightful owner, leading to speculation that the police may already have identified him.
The wife of the deceased survived and was attended to in Mueda Rural Hospital before being transferred to intensive care in Pemba Provincial Hospital.
This is the fifth albino killed in Cabo Delgado province this year.
Albinism is caused by a hereditary genetic defect that prevents people from producing melanin, the pigment that gives rise to colour in the skin, hair and eyes. The hunting of albinos for body parts is not new in Mozambique but has increased dramatically in the past two years.
Last December, government authorities set up a commission to try to increase protection for people with albinism, but with little effect.
More than fifty alleged kidnappers and killers of albino people have been arrested countrywide, but the instigators behind the scourge remain unknown. There is a widespread belief that witch-doctors from the south and east of the African continent pay high prices for albino body parts to use in medicines and rituals for healing or to bring good luck.
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