Zeru Zeru The Ghosts - Trailer
3,186 views · Published 1 March 2012 · 7:47 · Indexed 4 November 2026
Channel: Journeyman Pictures · 2012 · News & Politics
For more information visit: http://www.journeyman.tv/?lid=62551 See more: http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures?feature=mhee "Bring me the limbs of an albino and you will become rich", the witch-doctor commands. And his patients obey: in Tanzania, albinos are the victims of a manhunt driven by superstition, murdered and mutilated by bounty hunters. A horror trade of human limbs has been set up and is spreading like wildfire into neighboring countries. They are the Zeru Zeru, the Nobodies, the Ghosts. Mariam knew her attacker. She knew his name, had talked to him. But they came in the night with a torch and a machete. Her family had been barricaded into their rooms and could only listen to her screams - "It hurts mama, it hurts". The surgeons did all they could, but her one remaining arm was hanging gangrenous by a skin flap, and there was no way to save it. She was five months pregnant at the time. After seventeen-year-old Vomilia was murdered in front of her family, her mother had her buried separately, far deeper than usual, and tore the house down on top of her grave. This way no-one can get to her body. Vomilia's brother carries a whistle with him wherever he goes: "I believe that in these parts, I should already be dead." The bad people came for Bibi Anna the night of her father's funeral. They took her leg and two fingers from her right hand. The man responsible was her uncle: he was bribed to let the attackers in. Although happily re-adopted, she and her sister Tinti still run and hide every time there is a knock at the door: "they think evil is outside." Six year old Lissa says she is afraid of people. Why? "They will cut me", she explains. And for these children, there is little anyone can say that can calm their fears. Africa has the highest percentage of albinism in the world, but the craze for using albino bones in charms for wealth and prosperity is a new one. Once, albinos merely had to live with the stigma of ostracism and abuse from people who were afraid of them. Now they live in fear for their lives. Some of Tanzania's 161,000 witch doctors are simply wise men and women who use bark and herbs to help their people; they cure, cast spells, give business advice and even predict the future, reading coming events in the entrails of a chicken. Others do grisly deals with bone vendors and convince as many of the money-hungry population as they can that their secret magic will help them realise their dreams. Mariam, Bibi Anna and Vomilia. They are but three in a count of hundreds and the demand for albino body parts is growing. "In Burundi they are killing, in Congo they are killing -- it is spreading like fire." And nobody seems able to stop it. This hauntingly beautiful documentary follows the people, mainly children, who are being hunted mercilessly for the colour of their skin.
