Foreign with-doctors plying their trade in Malawi have been banned all in a bid to curb a rising wave of abductions, attacks and killings of albinos.
So far 18 albinos have been gruesomely murdered in Malawi in the past three years, according to authorities. The 18th victim was 38 year-old Fletcher Masina who was murdered in his garden in central Malawi’s district of Ntcheu on Tuesday.
Government’s interventions came after albinos stormed Parliament premises in Malawi capital, Lilongwe on Tuesday demanding among others the execution of convicted murderers.
The government has also pledged to send children with albinism to boarding schools as one way of offering them protection while guaranteeing them their right to education.
In a statement, Malawi President Peter Mutharika’s chief political adviser Dr Hetherwick Ntaba said that only herbalists who adhered to a code of practice would be allowed to operate in Malawi.
“Foreign witch-doctors should immediately stop plying their trade in Malawi. We have just learnt that some witch-doctors who were banned in Tanzania and others from Mozambique fled to Malawi and are fuelling attacks on people with albinism. They must be deported,” said Ntaba.
He accused the foreign witch-doctors of fuelling killings by lying to superstitious Malawians that albino body parts when mixed with other charms bring good luck and wealth.
Traditional Healers Association of Malawi president Frank Manyowa welcomed the ban.
“We, the traditional healers, simply heal various ailments using plants with medicinal nutrients. It’s the foreign witch-doctors and soothsayers who are perpetrating the killings because of their belief in black magic,” he said.
He added: “Local magicians must be arrested and jailed while foreign magicians should deported back to their countries.”
Manyowa said the only way to success was through innovation and hard work and not through the use of rituals, Satanism and witchcraft.
Several Malawi lawmakers backed the proposals to execute albino murderers.
“It is time for tit-for-tat, an eye for an eye and a life for a life. Let’s join hands and end the senseless murderers by hanging all albino killers,” an opposition lawmaker Madalitso Kazombo said.
