Like millions of tourists to New York City, the five young visitors from Tanzania took in Central Park, the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in the National History Museum and Times Square.
The hustle and bustle of the Big Apple is not usually celebrated for its restorative qualities, but Esther Rwela, the guardian of the five youngsters aged between six and 18, said yesterday: “I can see that their minds are healing.”
They are all albinos, born in a nation where certain branches of traditional medicine hold that their bodies possess magical qualities. All have lost limbs in brutal attacks perpetrated to satisfy a demand among Tanzanian witchdoctors for albino body parts, which are said to sell for thousands of dollars.
They were brought to New York by Elissa Montanti, 62, a former laboratory assistant whose Staten Island charity, the Global Medical Relief Fund, brings amputees to America for surgery and prosthetics treatment.
She raised money to bring the Tanzanians to America after reading about Baraka Lusambo, who lost his right hand in an attack in March. His attackers arrived at night, bearing torches, knives and machetes, bursting into his family home in a village in western Tanzania. Police in the Rukwa region later arrested 17 suspects, among them Baraka’s father and his younger brother.
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Another of the group, Emmanuel Festa, 13, lost his left arm and the fingers of his right hand, as well as teeth and parts of his upper jaw, in a machete attack when he was seven.
Ms Rwela, 36, who works for a Canadian charity called Under The Same Sun, which runs safe houses for albinos in Tanzania, said that Emmanuel was a gifted artist and that he had learnt to draw and write by holding a pen between his fingerless remaining hand and his cheek.
Last year, at a hospital in Uganda, a Canadian doctor removed one of his middle toes and attached it to his right hand where the thumb had been, in a “toe to thumb” transplant.
This summer doctors at a children’s hospital in Philadelphia operated on the palm of his right hand, hoping to help him to grip a pencil using his palm and his new thumb.
“They’re going to evaluate him next week but so far so good,” Ms Montanti said. Emmanuel will also receive a prosthetic limb, to replace his left arm. The four other youngsters are getting prosthetics as well, and will begin to learn to use them next week.
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Police in Tanzania have recorded 157 attacks on albinos since 2006, 94 of which proved fatal. Fear of fresh attacks has driven survivors to flee their families, to the sanctuary of government-run centres and safe houses.
“A lot of Americans have invited us to their houses,” Ms Rwela said. “Some of them had pools. The children have all learnt to swim now. And we have had barbecues.” They also sampled some of New York’s local delicacies. “They really liked pizza,” Ms Rwela added.
She also said they were anxious, but hopeful, about their return to Tanzania. “They are still scared but they are sure that the centres and the safe houses are safe.”
Emmanuel, along with some of the others, will return to Staten Island next year for further treatment.