Weah Bangura, 19, albino model from Sierra Leone escaped the witch doctors in his home country who wanted to kill him for having ‘supernatural powers’ to become a top model on the Australian runways, reports Daily Mail.
‘It’s witchcraft, they make potions,’ Weah said. ‘They believe that albinos have special power in their bones, their hair, their skin.’
Weah spent most of his childhood hidden in the house, not just because out of his parent’s fear that people with malicious beliefs will end him but also because his eyesight was blinded by the sun’s glare.
‘It wasn’t the best memories, growing up in Sierra Leone,’ he said. ‘The only time I was allowed out was when the sun was down, and everyone else was inside.’
Weah’s fortunes changed when a civil war rocked his motherland and his parents fled to Cameroon and eventually Sydney.
‘People didn’t notice that I wasn’t Australian,’ he said. ‘I felt I was the same as everyone else. I didn’t feel like the odd one out.’
This new found freedom helped him discover himself; he discovered that he had a talent in running and soccer. As fate would have it, his longtime desire of modeling fuelled by watching television came to be on March 2016 when he was scouted for an Evo Hair campaign.
Weah has since modeled for the likes of Toni&Guy and P.E Nation, and been featured in the pages of 10 Men and Oyster. And he has now added Australia Fashion Week to his resume, walking for Justin Cassin recently.
