Her face still scarred by the machete attack that nearly killed her, Rukia Khalfani cannot hide her astonishment when she gazes into the eyes of the Canadian who has come to comfort her. His eyes are as pale as hers, and his skin is as white.
She had no idea that albinos existed outside Tanzania. She laughs in amazement.
“I want you to know that I am your brother,” the visitor from Canada, Peter Ash, said. “You and your children are just absolutely beautiful.”
It’s a message she has never heard before. Shunned by her village, she raised her children in isolation in a mud-and-stick hut on the edge of the jungle, where her teenage daughter could escape the taunts and threats of her classmates.
When people passed by their home, she heard them shouting “dili dili”– the Swahili word for “deal” – a reference to the lucrative profits they could make by selling her body parts to witch doctors. It’s a word that Tanzania’s albinos hear every day.
On the night of Feb. 7, a machete-wielding man crept up to her hut in darkness. When she stepped outside, carrying her infant daughter on her back, the man slashed viciously at the baby, trying to sever her leg. He pursued them into the hut, slashing Ms. Khalfani on the forehead, leaving her with blood pouring over her face.
It was the 60th reported attack on Tanzanian albinos since 2007. It was followed by two more attacks this month, including the killing last Sunday of a four-year-old girl whose right arm and leg were chopped off. At least 56 albinos have been killed in the attacks, and many more are believed to have died in unreported cases.
The grisly trade in albino body parts is supported by powerful forces – even politicians and police officers, according to experts – and prosecutions have been slow. At least five policemen were among the dozens arrested after the attacks, but only two of the 56 homicides have led to criminal convictions. The affluent buyers who pay for the body parts have never been identified in court or police records.
Mr. Ash, a 44-year-old B.C. businessman who himself has albinism, is trying to change all of this. He has spent $1-million in a campaign against the albino killings, setting up an organization in Tanzania to lobby for justice and educate the public. He plans to spend a further $500,000 to $1-million annually to keep the fight alive.
Albinism, a genetic condition that causes a lack of pigmentation in the hair, skin and eyes, is more common in Africa than in North America. Most of the estimated 100,000 albinos in Tanzania are persecuted and fearful, and poorly educated because of vision problems. Mr. Ash visits the attack survivors to dispel the myths and provide support and scholarships.
B.C. businessman Peter Ash, who has albinism, talks to Zainabu, 13, an alibino girl in Tanzania.— Geoffrey York/The Globe and Mail
This week, on his fifth trip to Tanzania since 2008, Mr. Ash drove down the narrow, bumpy roads to Ms. Khalfani’s village to offer assistance. When he met Ms. Khalfani, he took off his glasses and showed her his nearly blind eyes and his easily burned white skin.
Her 14-month-old daughter has a vivid purple scar running from her thigh to her hip, where the attacker tried to chop off her leg. The assailant escaped, but Ms. Khalfani’s husband and another man were detained for 10 days of questioning.
Her husband denies any involvement, but she has separated from him and moved into her mother’s home for protection. “I don’t trust people very much nowadays,” she told Mr. Ash. “I just stay at home with my mother. I don’t even go out for firewood.”
Albinos are often betrayed by husbands or other relatives, lured by payments of up to $3,000 for an albino limb and $75,000 for a “full set” of albino body parts. The parts are ground into potions and talismans that are believed to bring wealth and power.
