Why they demonstrated
Persons with albinism (PWAs) alongside some leaders of civil society organisations yesterday braved a downpour in Lilongwe to march over 20 kilometres to petition President Peter Mutharika and demand guarantees for their security.
Mary Samuel from Traditional Authority Chadza’s area in Lilongwe said that apart from herself being a PWA, so too her husband and their three children.
She walked the distance with a child strapped at her back. She said she was tired of living in fear for years on end. It was visibly a tough task, but she said that she saw nothing worse than being hunted down like an animal and being killed.
Said Samuel: “We are being hunted down and killed like animals. There is no security for us at all. I am as good as dead. I am going to walk to the State House and sleep there until the President hears my cry.”
Another PWA, Lyton Sekabe, a student of community development, said he was in Lilongwe to pursue his dream of an education.
Despite his family being poor, he said they bought him a mobile phone to daily communicate with him to ascertain his safety.
Catherine Mpinganjira said she joined the march because her brother has a child with albinism.
Shivering from the cold after being drenched with rain, she said she was determined to spend a night in the rain if doing so would move authorities to guarantee safety of PWAs.
Mpinganjira said that since 2014, as a family, they cannot let the girl with albinism go out of their sight for fear that she might be abducted or even get killed by ruthless assailants baying the blood of people living with albinism.
The Reverend Masona Tembo from Kafita CCAP joined the march because he felt that as a man of God he has a responsibility to help protect the oppressed, saying, “God always sympathises with the oppressed.”
Malawi is experiencing a resurgence of attacks against persons with
albinism, with two fatalities and three abductions since 31 December 2018. Two of those who were abducted were later rescued by community members, one remains missing.
Since November 2014, the number of reported crimes against people with albinism in Malawi has risen to 152 cases, including 25 murders and more than 10 people missing, according to Apam. n
