Albino baby stolen

In a new low from the albino hunters of Burundi a five-month-old baby has been abducted from it’s home on New Year’s Day evening.

An armed gang, believed to have connections with Tanzanian witchdoctors, attacked a family on New Year’s Day and stole the infant. The attack took place in a town in the east of Burundi close to the Tanzanian border.

“During the New Year night, bandits attacked a family on Vumwe hill in Kinyinya and abducted a newborn girl aged barely five months,” said local justice official Nicodeme Gahimbare.

“They fled toward the nearby Tanzanian border. We fear the worst because we think they are attempting to cross into Tanzania to sell this newborn’s limbs to witchdoctors,” said Kinyinya’s top official, Gaston Gashirahamwe.

This latest attack comes just days after a 12-year-old albino boy was brutally murdered in Burundi when an armed gang hacked off his left hand and fled with it. People in Tanzania have spoken out about the allegations that the murders are prompted by Tanzanian witchdoctors creating a demand for albino body parts, which they use to create black magic potions and lucky charms.

Tanzanians have replied to the allegations by saying that the use of albino body parts is widespread across Africa and it is wrong to blame the attacks in neighbouring Burundi on them. The Tanzanian authorities recently cracked down on albino killers and handed out death sentences to their convicted albino hunters, the authorities in Burundi have only given prison sentences to any convicted albino hunters.