The United Nations warns that Malawi’s estimated 10,000 albinos face “extinction” if the killings continue.
People with the genetic disorder, which is characterised by an absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes, have long suffered from discrimination in our country, where superstition about the condition runs deep.
We are happy today that police have finally arrested one of their own in connection with the abduction and subsequent killing of McDonald Masambuka a 22-year-old albino man.
This has made up for the Malawi Police Service’s failings to solve the murders of persons with albinism that first surfaced four years ago.
These killings have usually been barbaric. Bodies are abandoned with limbs cut off and organs ripped out. Its gut wrenching.
More than 60 related cases have been recorded. These range from murders to the theft of bones from the graves of people with albinism.
Official statistics show that, since 2014, over 20 persons with albinism have been killed, over nine cases of abductions have been reported in the past four months, and three persons with albinism have been reported missing.
Last year, the Zomba Chief Magistrate Court convicted and sentenced two men to 20 years imprisonment with hard labour each for abducting a 24 year-old man with albinism with intent to murder and sell the parts in Machinga District.
According to Eastern Region Police Prosecution Officer, Dickens Mwambazi, the convicts approached a certain businessman at Ntaja Trading Centre in Machinga District and offered to sell him a person with albinism at K20 million.
On May 23, 2017, Fletcher Masina, 38, became at least the 18th person with albinism to be murdered in Malawi since the end of 2014.
All these attacks are driven by the belief that albino body parts can be used for witchcraft to bring wealth and cure disease.
So the arrest of a police officer is, to many of us, a breakthrough because we feel police, finally, are getting close to stopping the terror that mothers of children with an albinism condition endure everyday.
The arrest may have dented the image of police in Machinga and the police service as a whole. But then, again, police should applaud themselves for what they have achieved.
The action does inspire confidence that the officers are not out there trying to shield each other but are committed to getting to the bottom of it all.
We expect police to solve the Machinga problem because the district, without a doubt, has become the hotbed for these killings.
We also see that we have come a long way and need to encourage our officers.
The sentences the courts are meting out to offenders are no longer lenient compared to two years ago. Do you remember a man was fined K20,000 for being found with human bones?
Today, that is not the case. The penalties are stiffer. We expect our police to follow through and win for us again.
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