Eighteen people have died after police in Madagascar opened fire on what they called a lynch mob angered at the kidnapping of a child with albinism, a senior doctor has said.
Dozens were also wounded in the incident on Monday. “At the moment, 18 people have died in all, nine on the spot and nine in hospital,” Tango Oscar Toky, chief physician at a hospital in southeastern Madagascar, told AFP.
On the large Indian Ocean island, people with albinism are regularly the target of violence. More than a dozen abductions, attacks, and murders have been reported in the past two years, according to the United Nations.
A reported kidnapping of a child with albinism happened last week in the town of Ikongo, according to Jean-Brunelle Razafintsiandraofa, a member of parliament for that district.
Four suspects had been arrested by the gendarmes but the residents went to the gendarmerie barracks on Monday, demanding that the suspects be handed over, the lawmaker said.
Credit: Aljazeera.com
