NAIROBI, Kenya — The mistaken belief that albino body parts have magical powers has driven thousands of Africa's albinos into hiding, fearful of losing their lives and limbs to unscrupulous dealers who can make up to $75,000 selling a complete dismembered set. 

Mary Owido, who lacks pigment that gives color to skin, eyes and hair, says she is only comfortable when at work or at home with her husband and children. 

"Wherever I go people start talking about me, saying that my legs and hands can fetch a fortune in Tanzania," said Owido, 36, a mother of six. "This kind of talk scares me. I am afraid of going out alone." 

Since 2007, 44 albinos have been killed inTanzania and 14 others have been slain inBurundi, sparking widespread fear among albinos in East Africa. 

At least 10,000 have been displaced or gone into hiding since the killings began, according to a report released this week by the International Federation for the Red Cross and Crescent societies. 

East Africa's latest albino murder happened in Tanzania's Mwanza region in late October, when albino hunters
beheaded 10-year-old Gasper Elikana and chopped off his leg, the report said. The killing left Elikana's father, who tried to defend his son, seriously injured. 

Albinism is a hereditary condition, but occurs only when both parents have albinism genes. All six of Owido's children have normal skin color. 

African albinos endure insults, discrimination and segregation throughout their lives. They also have a high risk of contracting skin cancer in a region where many jobs are outdoors. 

Owido, a high school teacher in the western Kenyan town of Ahero, says she was forced to transfer from a better
teaching job on the Kenya-Tanzania border town of Isebania in 2008 after an albino girl she knew was murdered and her body parts chopped off. 

The surge in the use of albino body parts as good luck charms is a result of "a kind of marketing exercise by witch doctors," the International Federation for the Red Cross and Crescent societies said. 

The report says the market for albino parts exists mainly in Tanzania, where a complete set of body parts – including all limbs, genitals, ears, tongue and nose – can sell for $75,000. Wealthy buyers use the parts as talismans to bring them wealth and good fortune. 

"Albinism is one of the most unfortunate vulnerabilities," said International Federation for the Red Cross and Crescent societies Secretary General Bekele Geleta. "And it needs to be addressed immediately at an international level." 

The chairman of the Albino Association of Kenya, Isaac Mwaura, called the murders deplorable but said the killings have given albinos a platform to raise awareness. 

Almost 90 percent of albinos living in the region were raised by single mothers, Mwaura said, because the fathers believed their wives were having affairs with white men. 

"When I was born my father said his family tree doesn't have such children and left us," Mwaura said. 

Some African communities believe that albinos are harbingers of disaster, while others mistakenly think albinos are mentally retarded and discourage their parents from taking them to school, saying it's a waste of money, he said. 

Due to a lack of education, many albinos are illiterate and are forced into menial jobs, exposing them to the sun and skin cancer, he said. Those who manage to finish school face discrimination in the work place and are never considered for promotions. 

"People are very blind to albinism but it is very visible. Now that we have this issue in Tanzania is when people have started to talk about albinism," Mwaura said. "Before there was a studious silence."

Stevie Wonder is right.  Superstition……ain't the way.

How did Ben and Angela Ihegboro, a black Nigerian couple living inLondon, give birth to a white daughter? 

The answer may not be so black and white, experts say. 

According to the BBC, there are three potential reasons for the baby Nmachi's unexpected appearance:
"dormant white genes which entered both of her parents' families long ago, a genetic mutation unique to her, or albinism." 

The first reports on the family's strange case had ruled out albinism, but the BBC says Nmachi's doctors have not ruled it out. 

Albinism, a condition where by a person has little or no color in their skin, hair and eyes, can remain dormant in genes for many generations. Just because the couple's living relatives aren't afflicted by the disease, that doesn't mean they aren't carriers. It is not uncommon in Nigeria, according to the BBC. 

But it's not the only possible explanation. 

Doctors also say Nmachi's parents may harbor long dormant Caucasian DNA from a long forgotten interracial coupling, according to the BBC.  A third possibility is perhaps the most tantalizing but also the scariest. Nmachi may
have a unique genetic mutation that doctors have not seen before. 

More at the BBC and the Sun http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/ho.....-baby.html

The year is 1965, and 10 year-old Sandra has distinctly African-looking features. Her parents, Abraham and Sannie, are white Afrikaaners, unaware of their black ancestry. They are shopkeepers in a remote area of the Eastern Transvaal and, despite Sandra's mixed-race appearance, have lovingly brought her up as their white little girl. Sandra is sent to a boarding school in the neighbouring town of Piet Retief, where her (white) brother Leon is also studying, but parents and teachers complain that she doesn't belong. She is examined by State officials, reclassified as coloured, and expelled from the school. Sandra's parents are shocked, but Abraham fights through the courts to have the classification reversed. The story becomes an international scandal and media pressure forces the law to
change, so that Sandra becomes officially white again. 

By the time she is 17, Sandra realises she is never going to be accepted by the white community. She falls in love with Petrus, a black man and the local vegetable seller, and begins an illicit love affair. Abraham threatens to shoot Petrus and disown Sandra. Sannie is torn between her husband's rage and her daughter's predicament. Sandra elopes with Petrus to Swaziland. Abraham alerts the police, and has them arrested and put in prison. Sandra is told by the local magistrate to go home, but she refuses. 

Now Sandra must live her life as a black woman in South Africa for the first time, with no running water, no
sanitation and little income. She and Petrus have two children, and although she feels more at home in this community, she desperately misses her parents and yearns for a reunion. After many more years of hardship and struggle, the chances of that reunion ever happening seem remote.

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