Razik Jaffalie on May 23, 2016 with his two sons, including three-year-old Cassim, who has albinism. Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / Associated Press
Razik Jaffalie on May 23, 2016 with his two sons, including three-year-old Cassim, who has albinism. Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / Associated Press
Razik Jaffalie on May 23, 2016 with his two sons, including three-year-old Cassim, who has albinism. Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / Associated Press
Razik Jaffalie on May 23, 2016 with his two sons, including three-year-old Cassim, who has albinism. Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / Associated Press

Malawian witch doctors hunt down albinos for good luck medicine


  • English
  • Arabic

LILONGWE // When the police went to Edna Cedrick’s home last February, she knew it could not be for any good reason. In fact, it was the stuff of nightmares. The police asked her to identify the severed head of a boy as that of her nine-year-old son.

Edna’s son was killed because he had albinism, a condition that meant his body lacked pigmentation. In Malawi, where many people still cling to witchcraft and ancient rituals that meant he was literally beyond the pale.

Albinos are hunted for their body parts which are then sold to witch doctors to use in potions which supposedly bring good luck and prosperity. There is also belief that the bones of people with albinism contain gold and that sex with an albino can cure HIV.

The death of Edna’s son was one of at least 18 in as many months — “ a steep upsurge in killings”, according to a report released on Tuesday by Amnesty International. Five other albinos are still missing following abduction. The real toll is probably higher because many killings in rural areas are never reported. Malawi police have also recorded at least 65 attacks, abductions and murders since the end of 2014, including cases where the bodies of people with albinism have been exhumed illegally.

“The unprecedented wave of brutal attacks against people with albinism has created a climate of terror for this vulnerable group and their families,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s director for southern Africa, said.

Mass unemployment, drought and a crackdown on witchcraft in neighbouring Tanzania are all cited as possible reasons for the increase in attacks on albinos, who number 10,000 out of a population of 16.5 million and face discrimination from their community and even from their relatives. Children have been attacked by close family members and even sold by their parents, said Simeon Mawanza, lead researcher of the Amnesty report.,

Despite widespreads public condemnation by activists and senior government figures, including president Peter Mutharika, who declared the practice “disgusting”, and a court order banning all traditional healers, witch doctors, charm producers, magic users and fortune tellers” from operating, nothing seems to deter those who prey on albinos. .

Edna was alone with her twin boys — both of them albinos — when her son was taken in the middle of the night. She awoke to the sound of people kicking down the door of her house. “Before I could understand what was happening, they sliced the mosquito net and grabbed one of the twins,” said Edna, 26.“I held on to him by the waist, at the same time shielding the other with my back.”

When the assailants failed to overpower her, one of them hit her in the forehead with a machete, she said. “This dazed me, and I lost hold of my son and he was gone. I shouted for help, but when my relatives rushed to our house, they were gone.”

The boy’s twin keeps asking where his brother is, she said. She lies, saying he will return.

In another part of Malawi, Fletcher Masina, a 38-year-old albino man with four children was also found dead recently, with his limbs removed.

Police concede that they do not have the manpower to provide security, especially in rural areas where such attacks are rampant. .In Machinga district, Razik Jaffalie, 31, said he had been forced to give up his job as a bicycle taxi operator to protect his son, Cassim, and was in dire financial straits.

“My life has come to a standstill,” said Razik Jaffalie, 31. “Anyone who will come to try to snatch my child from me will have to kill me first.”

There have been some lucky escapes. Mina Godfrey, 13, an albino girl also from Machinga district survived being snatched from her bed at night by her uncle. “I was deep in sleep when next thing I realised was that I was outside the house in heavy rain and naked,” she said. “When I screamed, my uncle grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and I choked.”

She was tied to a bicycle but managed to flee while her attackers negotiated with the buyer, and his in a nearby house until the morning. Despite her trauma, Mina recently came top in her school exams and aspires to a career as a lawyer.

Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s director for southern Africa, concluded: “The time has come for the government of Malawi to stop burying its head in the sand and pretending that this problem will just go away.”

* Associated Press

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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
 
Started: 2021
 
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
 
Based: Tunisia 
 
Sector: Water technology 
 
Number of staff: 22 
 
Investment raised: $4 million 
Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe

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Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm

Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year

Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”

Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners

TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013 

Company Profile:

Name: The Protein Bakeshop

Date of start: 2013

Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani

Based: Dubai

Size, number of employees: 12

Funding/investors:  $400,000 (2018) 

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
EMIRATES'S%20REVISED%20A350%20DEPLOYMENT%20SCHEDULE
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Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sept 16-20, Insportz, Dubai

Company%20Profile
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Turning%20waste%20into%20fuel
%3Cp%3EAverage%20amount%20of%20biofuel%20produced%20at%20DIC%20factory%20every%20month%3A%20%3Cstrong%3EApproximately%20106%2C000%20litres%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EAmount%20of%20biofuel%20produced%20from%201%20litre%20of%20used%20cooking%20oil%3A%20%3Cstrong%3E920ml%20(92%25)%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ETime%20required%20for%20one%20full%20cycle%20of%20production%20from%20used%20cooking%20oil%20to%20biofuel%3A%20%3Cstrong%3EOne%20day%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EEnergy%20requirements%20for%20one%20cycle%20of%20production%20from%201%2C000%20litres%20of%20used%20cooking%20oil%3A%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3E%E2%96%AA%20Electricity%20-%201.1904%20units%3Cbr%3E%E2%96%AA%20Water-%2031%20litres%3Cbr%3E%E2%96%AA%20Diesel%20%E2%80%93%2026.275%20litres%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Draw:

Group A: Egypt, DR Congo, Uganda, Zimbabwe

Group B: Nigeria, Guinea, Madagascar, Burundi

Group C: Senegal, Algeria, Kenya, Tanzania

Group D: Morocco, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Namibia

Group E: Tunisia, Mali, Mauritania, Angola

Group F: Cameroon, Ghana, Benin, Guinea-Bissau

The specs

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Power: 503hp at 6,000rpm

Torque: 685Nm at 2,000rpm

Transmission: 8-speed auto

Price: from Dh850,000

On sale: now

Petrarch: Everywhere a Wanderer
Christopher Celenza,
Reaktion Books

The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

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  • 400m Olympic running track
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  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
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  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
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The National Archives, Abu Dhabi

Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.

Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en

LILO & STITCH

Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders

Director: Dean Fleischer Camp

Rating: 4.5/5

The Sand Castle

Director: Matty Brown

Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea

Rating: 2.5/5

If you go

 

  • The nearest international airport to the start of the Chuysky Trakt is in Novosibirsk. Emirates (www.emirates.com) offer codeshare flights with S7 Airlines (www.s7.ru) via Moscow for US$5,300 (Dh19,467) return including taxes. Cheaper flights are available on Flydubai and Air Astana or Aeroflot combination, flying via Astana in Kazakhstan or Moscow. Economy class tickets are available for US$650 (Dh2,400).
  • The Double Tree by Hilton in Novosibirsk ( 7 383 2230100,) has double rooms from US$60 (Dh220). You can rent cabins at camp grounds or rooms in guesthouses in the towns for around US$25 (Dh90).
  • The transport Minibuses run along the Chuysky Trakt but if you want to stop for sightseeing, hire a taxi from Gorno-Altaisk for about US$100 (Dh360) a day. Take a Russian phrasebook or download a translation app. Tour companies such as  Altair-Tour ( 7 383 2125115 ) offer hiking and adventure packages.
While you're here
WOMAN AND CHILD

Director: Saeed Roustaee

Starring: Parinaz Izadyar, Payman Maadi

Rating: 4/5

What can victims do?

Always use only regulated platforms

Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion

Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)

Report to local authorities

Warn others to prevent further harm

Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence

UK-EU trade at a glance

EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years

Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products

Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries

Smoother border management with use of e-gates

Cutting red tape on import and export of food

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Price: From Dh149,900

THE CLOWN OF GAZA

Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah 

Starring: Alaa Meqdad

Rating: 4/5

Scores

Scotland 54-17 Fiji
England 15-16 New Zealand