At least eleven dead in a protest over the attack on an albino child in Madagascar

ANTANANARIVO (DPA/EP)

At least eleven people have been killed and 18 seriously injured after Malagasy police opened fire on demonstrators protesting the kidnapping of an albino boy and the murder of his mother.

The protest took place in the district of Ikongo, in the southeast of Madagascar, and in it the demonstrators demanded that the authorities hand over the four people suspected of double crime.

The head of the Police, Andry Rakotondrazaka, explained at a press conference that the agents did “everything possible” to “avoid a confrontation”, but that they were forced to open fire when the protesters tried to break into a police station armed.

“We couldn’t do anything other than protect ourselves and the facilities,” Rakotondrazaka justified.

A senior official from the Ikongo district, Jean Brunelle Razafintsiandraofa, has instead argued that the police fired without the protesters being armed, thus downplaying the danger they posed.

The Malagasy president, Andry Rajoelina, has expressed his condolences and called for calm in a Facebook message. He has promised that the authorities will investigate what happened.

The albino population is especially vulnerable in some African countries due to the superstitions and beliefs that still prevail over it today. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported in March more than a dozen attacks against people with albinism in the last two years in Madagascar.