Mutilation of Albino People in Africa, Parts Used in Witchcraft

One year ago, Mariam Staford Bandaba, an albino woman living in Tanzania, was viciously attacked by a machete-wielding gang who tried to kill her and sell her remains for witchcraft.

She escaped with her life, but only just.

The attackers chopped off one of her hands - the other had to be amputated in hospital, where she spent weeks recovering from her horrific injuries.

Traumatised, Ms Staford Bandaba then took the brave step of identifying her attackers.

She was taken to a safe-house where she lived under government protection.

But the government recently decided she could no longer live there, leaving the 28-year-old fearing for her safety.

She is even more upset because it is not just her who had to leave.

Her father and four siblings who were taking care of her and feeding her were also evicted.

They have had no choice but to return to the village where she was so brutally attacked.

Her father, Staford Bandaba, admitted he was very anxious about reprisal attacks being carried out on his family.

"Those who are responsible, all their relatives are still living there in the village, and those released from prison, are still living where we were living. So how can we stay there?"

The story of her eviction caught the attention of a businessman who has agreed to let her and her mother live in a room in his house for a year.

President Jakaya Kikwete has said the albino murders have brought shame to Tanzania and his government has taken steps to identify and prosecute the perpetrators.

...a court sentenced three men to death for the murder of an albino boy.

The young are often the targets. In early May ('08), Vumilia Makoye, 17, was eating dinner with her family in their hut in western Tanzania when two men showed up with long knives.

...The men sawed off Vumilia’s legs above the knee and ran away with the stumps. Vumilia died.

The single albino leg will fetch upwards of $1,000 in a gruesome market controlled by powerful Tanzanian witch doctors, who grind the bones into potions and repurpose them as good luck charms for struggling miners and fishermen.

The 244 participants are voicing the continents problems and sufferings while in Rome. And they're asking for help in getting rid of these injustices.

Issues like arms trafficking, child soldiers and ethnic murders are at the forefront of the synods dialogue.

One of the bishops from Nigeria denounced murders that stem from the rise of superstition and witchcraft.

Albino children are often the bigger victims because they are often killed or abandoned, and women accused of witchcraft.

One bishop from the Democratic Republic of Congo asked for the dignity of woman to be promoted and denounced rapes that continue to happen in his country.