Tanzania: Stop killing Albinos- President Kikwete

(SomaliNet) Measures aimed at protecting albinos in Tanzania from witch-doctors who murder and mutilate them for good luck was on Wednesday announced by Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete.

\"I am told that people kill albinos and chop their body parts, including fingers, believing they can get rich when mining or fishing,\" Kikwete said during his monthly televised address to the nation.

\"This is senseless cruelty. It must stop forthwith,\" he said, adding that 19 murders and two unresolved disappearances were recorded over the past year.

The police in Tanzania had been instructed to step up the hunt for witch-doctors involved in the murders and provisions made for all albinos in the country to be registered in order to increase security around them, he said.

A Tanzanian albino group recently complained they were being targeted by witch-doctors, following a string of murders.

In 2007, police reported several cases of people exhuming the freshly-buried bodies of infants to remove organs, in many cases the genitals, to make potions used in witchcraft rituals.-AFP