ABUJA, Nigeria—Some five hundred villagers gathered in front of a police station in Madagascar’s southeastern district of Ikongo, armed with sticks and machetes.
It was Aug. 29, and they had just learned that four people suspected of kidnapping an albino child and killing the child's mother were to be transferred from the local police station—where they’d been held since the incident occurred a week earlier—o the Tsiafahy maximum security prison in the capital.
“We believed that if these people were taken to Tsiafahy or even left in the [Ikongo] police station, they'll eventually be released and not made to face justice because the police and some of those working in the prison are corrupt,” said one protester, Nomena, who The Daily Beast is choosing to identify by his first name to protect him from possible retribution. “We wanted the police to hand these people [the suspects] to the villagers… or to the military, who we know can handle the matter without being biased.” But the demonstration in Ikongo turned chaotic as policemen, who said they had “ no choice but to resort to self-defense ,” opened fire on the protesters. As many as 21 demonstrators were killed and 30 others injured .
“Criminals cannot continue to kill albino children in Ikongo while adults like us just keep quiet and not do anything about it,” Rajo, a 31-year-old auto mechanic who took part in the protest, told The Daily Beast. “We don't trust the police to do what is right because some officers have been bribed by these criminals.” Reports of abductions, attacks and killings of children with albinism are far too common throughout Madagascar. In the past two years, more than a dozen attacks and killings of albino children have been recorded across the impoverished country in incidents the United Nations said probably occur more often than is being officially reported. According to the UN, the attacks are expected to increase as dangerously false beliefs that the body parts of albino people can be used in rituals to bring wealth and protection continue to grow. In recent months, according to a number of locals, numerous albino people—some as young as 4—have been kidnapped or killed in and around Ikongo, based on the myth that concoctions mixed with their body parts bring good fortune. Their butchered bodies are often found later without parts like skin, hair, breasts, limbs, nose, eye or genitals depending on the nature of the rituals. In some cases, grave robbers have dug out corpses to retrieve dead bodies of albinos.
One such attack occurred early this year when a 4-year-old albino boy was kidnapped one afternoon while playing with his peers outside his family's compound, according to locals who said his mutilated body was later found lying on a street in an area outside Ikongo. The incident, they said, was reported to police who claimed to have arrested a male suspect but later said the suspect was let go because they couldn’t prove he was responsible for the abduction. “We don’t believe anyone was arrested at all because there were some officers who told us in confidence that they never saw the suspect at the station,” said Rajo. The attacks, according to those with knowledge of how they are carried out, are often blatant. In some cases, kids are seized from their parents in broad daylight while walking on the streets. Compounds are attacked and people are kidnapped regardless of the hour. In a few instances, fingers have been pointed at family members and close friends. Even police officers have been accused of such crimes. Most of the attacks on people with albinism, a genetic disorder that prevents the skin from producing enough melanin, occur in impoverished areas with low education levels and strong superstitious beliefs.
“Attacks on albinos even happen right in front of security officers who look the other way,” Dorion, a 40-year-old welder in Ikongo who took part in the Aug. 29 protest, told The Daily Beast. “No one is bothered about protecting albino people here.”



Source: https://news.yahoo.com/albino-hunters-accused-kidnapping-butchering-081821692.html
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