Albino hunters kidnap 3-year old boy in Angonia, Tete province – Mozambique

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Albino hunters kidnap 3-year old boy in Angonia, Tete province – Mozambique

2:25 CAT | 03 May 2017

An albino child sits outside the courtroom in Ruyigi, eastern Burundi, May 28, 2009. Prosecutors in Burundi on Thursday asked for life sentences for three people on trial for allegedly murdering albinos to sell their body parts for use in witchcraft. REUTERS/Jean Pierre Aime Harerimana (BURUNDI CRIME LAW SOCIETY) - RTXOW93

File photo / For illustration purposes only

A three-year-old boy with albinism skin pigmentation characteristics was abducted by persons who have not yet been identified who broke into the child’s home last Friday (April 28) in the district of Angónia in Tete, the General Command of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique has reported.

The abduction happened in the Makuangaual neighbourhood and was reported by the mother of the victim, a 26-year-old woman identified as M. Antonio. Police say that enquiries with the aim of arresting the suspected kidnappers and rescuing the child are under way.

It is the first episode of its kind in Tete this year. Several cases of albino abduction and killing were reported in Tete in 2015 and 2016 in a wave of incidents that shook the whole country and were focused particularly in Nampula.

According to the Attorney General’s Office 2016 report submitted last April to the Assembly of the Republic, Tete reported eight cases of human trafficking for organ harvesting, against three in Niassa and two in Zambézia. Manica, Sofala and Cabo Delgado registered one each.

In Niassa, in January of this year, a seven-year-old boy with albinism was abducted by four individuals who broke into his family home while the family was sleeping.

It is not known whether the boy was rescued or whether the kidnappers were detained – the annual PGR report is vague on the matter. A multi-sectoral task team created by the government in 2015 to deal with the trafficking and killing of albinos was reduced in size from 51 members in 2015 to 15 in 2016.

Angónia District is a district in the northern part of Tete Province in the central region of Mozambique. Its administrative center is the town of Ulongué. The district is located in the northwest of the province, and borders with Dedza District of Malawi in the north, Ntcheu District of Malawi in the east, Tsangano District in the south, and with Macanga District in the west. The area of the district is 3,277 square kilometres (1,265 sq mi). It has a population of 335,808 as of 2007.