Albino candidates to run for office in Malawi

The UK's Guardian newspaper reports that six albino candidates will run for office next year in Malawi's general election.

"We want to show the public that we are more than our skin," Overstone Kondowe, director of the Association of People with Albinism in Malawi, told the news site.

Mr Kondowe's association has pledged to field six candidates in the presidential and parliamentary elections in the belief it will challenge perceptions of people living with albinism.

In Malawi, like other countries in the region, people with albinism are hunted down because of the belief that potions made from their body parts can bring good luck and wealth.

In 2016, a UN expert warned that Malawi's estimated 10,000 albinos face "extinction" if they continue to be murdered for their body parts.

Graves of albinos are also targeted by criminals who remove bones in order to sell them.

Activists say poverty contributes to the suspicion surrounding albinos and the belief their body parts can be sold for large sums of money.

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