Mozambique: Traditional healers deny murdering albinos

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Mozambique: Traditional healers deny murdering albinos

8:01 CAT | 16 Jun 2016

O País

Mozambican traditional healers (known as “curandeiros”) have denied any involvement in the kidnapping and murder of albinos.

This year there has been a spate of killings of albino citizens, particularly in the north of the country, apparently due to the import from Tanzania of the myth that the body parts of albinos have magical properties, and can be used in rituals that confer wealth and power.

Speaking at a Maputo press conference on Tuesday, held on the premises of the Ministry of Health, Azevedo Baptista, the spokesperson for the Association of Mozambican Traditional Doctors (Ametramo), denied that Mozambican curandeiros use human body parts in their activities.

“The use of human body parts in traditional medicine is not our practice”, he said, “and so we have no need to hunt and kill albinos. These cases are of concern to us, because Mozambican traditional medicine does not use human body parts for any purpose, either for treatment or for getting rich”.

He claimed that true traditional medicine is embedded “in a system of legal, ethical and moral standards”, and demanded that severe measures be taken against all those who use traditional medicine as a cloak for murder.

Baptista blamed the murders of albinos on witch-doctors from neighbouring countries operating illegally in Mozambique.

“There are many practitioners of traditional medicine from neighbouring countries”, he said. “We are unable to control them, and we don’t know how they practice medicine. Perhaps they use human body parts, and they are the ones responsible for these crimes”.

He argued that, in order to deal with this problem, traditional medicine should be regulated, and unauthorized foreign curandeiros prevented from working in Mozambique. A proposal to set up a “National Council on Traditional Medicine” has already been submitted to the Prime Minister’s office.

Baptista admitted that the murders of albinos and the trafficking in body parts had undermined the credibility of traditional healers. “Our activity is being stained because of the activity of people we don’t know”, he said

Meanwhile, the governor of the western province of Tete, Paulo Auade, has urged religious leaders to spread the message that albinos must be protected against those who seek to do them harm.

Speaking at a meeting with church leaders on Monday, to mark International Albinism Awareness Day, Auade urged them to mention in their sermons “that albinos are just like everyone else, except that they have a problem with their skin pigmentation”.

There were no magical riches to be found in the eyes, bones or hair of albinos, “and we must fight against the curandeiros who say that there are”, he insisted.

Church leaders told reporters they accepted the governor’s message, and would transmit it to their congregations during religious services.

Source: AIM