The Sunday News
Blantyre — A United Nations human rights expert has described Malawians living with albinism as “an endangered group facing a risk of systemic extinction over time if nothing is done”. “Persons with albinism, and parents of children with albinism, constantly live in fear of attack,” said Ikponwosa Ero, the UN independent expert on the rights of persons with albinism, at the end of her visit to Malawi.
Ero, in a statement released on Friday, observed that many people living with albinism did not sleep peacefully and had deliberately restricted their movement to the minimum to avoid falling prey to the abductors and killers.
“The frequent involvement of close relatives in cases of attacks is highly disturbing, and persons with albinism are unable to trust even those who are supposed to care for and protect them. Consequently, persons with albinism in the current context of attacks are locked in a spiral of fear and poverty,” she said.
Ero described the situation in Malawi as “an emergency and a crisis disturbing in its proportions”.
Police in Malawi have recorded 65 cases of albino abductions since late 2014. The number of people with albinism is around 10 000 out of the country’s estimated population of 17 million.
About 20 people living with albinism have been killed so far, the latest case being that of a girl whose uncle played a role in facilitating her abduction and eventual killing.
A court in Malawi’s rural district of Dowa on Thursday sentenced the uncle (Gerald Phiri) and his accomplice to 17 years imprisonment for aiding in the abduction of the 21-year-old Eneless Nkhata, who was later found murdered. — News24
