Yahoo! News, March 12, 2015

Over 200 people have been arrested in Tanzania as part of a nationwide crackdown on witchdoctors linked to a wave of albino attacks and murders, police said Thursday.

Police said they had arrested 225 unlicenced traditional healers and soothsayers during a special operation carried out in several parts of the east African country and due to be extended to all 30 regions.

“Some of those arrested were found in possession of items like lizard skin, warthog teeth, ostrich eggs, monkey tails, bird claws, mule tails and lion skin,” police spokesperson Advera Bulimba said in a statement.

Bulimba said the police campaign would target the entire network of gangsters, traders and witchdoctors, adding that 97 of those detained had already appeared in court.

The statement also appealed to religious leaders, traditional elders, politicians and journalists “to continue the awareness campaign against superstitious beliefs that are holding back the development of our country.”

The announcement comes after President Jakaya Kikwete said the ongoing attacks against people with albinism, whose body parts are used for witchcraft, were “disgusting and a big embarrassment for the nation”.

In the most recent reported attack, a six-year-old albino boy’s hand was hacked off with a machete and his mother assaulted as she tried to protect him.

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Last week a Tanzanian court sentenced four people to death for the murder of an albino woman whose legs and right hand were hacked off with an axe and machete.

The killers who were convicted also included the husband of the murdered woman.

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At least 76 albinos have been murdered since 2000 with their dismembered body parts selling for around $600 and entire bodies fetching $75,000, according to United Nations experts.

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