Pictured Image Is Jasmine
In a report by United Nations Refugee agency, it captures a Nigerian whose daughter Jasmine has albinism currently resides in troubled Libya, seeks asylum in Italy, claims Albinos are killed in Nigeria.
The report reads in parts, “In the village where her 24-year-old mother Shalom grew up in southeast Nigeria, girls like Jasmine are seen as bearers of bad luck. They are frequently attacked and sometimes even killed. In many parts of Africa, their body parts are sold to witch doctors and used in rituals.
“We can’t go back there because we’re scared she might be kidnapped,” Shalom says. “Jasmine’s never met my mother, my sisters or my brothers, but they understand we can’t return.”
The report says Shalom moved to Libya in 2011. She had wanted to go to university to study law, but her boyfriend (now husband) Darlington, 43, from Libya, had a well-paid job as an electrician in the capital and she decided to follow him.
However, as fighting erupted in Libya, Shalom was isolated and frightened in Tripoli, rarely leaving the house. For dinner, she cooked traditional Nigerian recipes that she’d learned from her mother and she spoke regularly to her three sisters back home in Imo State. But she had few friends in the neighbourhood.
“Each day was the same,” Shalom says. “I’d get the kids up, give them a bath and then we’d watch cartoons on TV all day until my husband came home.”
It wasn’t until Darlington was caught up in a near fatal fire – which began as militants set fire to oil barrels close to their home – that they finally decided to leave Libya. The accident, which left him in a coma for a week, caused serious burns on his right side. Now, he can only walk with the aid of a stick.
The family now hopes to claim asylum in Italy. “One day when she grows up I want my daughter to be a human rights lawyer so she can fight discrimination cases,” says Shalom, as she gently tugs her daughter’s fair hair into a ponytail. “Maybe if she stays in Europe and gets a good job, she can fight for people like her.”
The report reads, “In some parts of Africa, albinism – a hereditary condition that causes little or no pigmentation in people’s eyes, skin or hair – is thought to affect as many as one in every 1,400 people. In Nigeria, it is more common in the south because of inbreeding among members of the same clan or townships.
“Village elders used light-skinned people for rituals in my village,” Jasmine father tells United Nations Refugee Agency , sighing, as he massages cream into his burns at a welcome centre for asylum seekers in Canicattini, 50 kilometres from Augusta. “There’s no future there for my girl.”
Read The Complete Report here United Nations Refugee Agency……
