DAR SALAAM: Tanzanian police have arrested two alleged witch doctors after an albino woman was hacked to death for body parts, a rights group said on Wednesday.Munghu Lugata, 40, was killed after attackers hacked off her left leg above the knee and chopped off three fingers on Monday, said Under The Same Sun, a group which campaigns for the rights of albinos.Charles Mkumbo, police chief of the Simiyu region in northwestern Tanzania, said that a man and a woman, Gudawa Yalema and Shiwa Masalu, had been arrested. “Her grossly mutilated body was discovered outside of her home by her own niece,” the group said, adding that more than 70 albinos have been killed since 2000, with a similar number suffering violent attacks.

In Tanzania, albinos are killed and dismembered due to a widespread belief that charms made from their body parts bring good fortune and prosperity.—AFP

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2014