A chilling testimony from a near-victim of ritual murder.

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Woman with albin­ism recounts escape from ritual murder

Published: June 21, 2026
By: Musa Simelane – Sunday Observer, Eswatini

The life of Nel­isiwe Shiba, a woman born with albin­ism, was never the same after dodging the night she was meant to ‘dis­ap­pear’ for good, as per the age-old legend that people like her do not die — they simply van­ish.

They can even leave the house in the middle of the night without inform­ing any­one, as the legend goes, and take on a mys­ter­i­ous jour­ney to a forest or moun­tain – never to be traced again.

However, just hours before the even­ing when such was sched­uled to hap­pen to Shiba (35), she was given a timely tip-off by a com­munity res­id­ent sup­posedly sent by a mem­ber of the very group that had plot­ted to make her van­ish forever. The mem­ber seem­ingly had a change of heart.

This took place in one of the small rural com­munit­ies of North­ern Hho­hho, whose name she pre­ferred not to dis­close. She was 25 at the time and had a small child.

Since then, Shiba has been liv­ing with the kind of fear that grips people with albin­ism nowadays — that when the sun sets, they could fall vic­tim to ritual killing dis­guised as mys­ter­i­ous dis­ap­pear­ances. Albin­ism is a genetic con­di­tion in which a per­son is born with little or no melanin pig­ment, res­ult­ing in lighter skin, hair, and eyes and often caus­ing vis­ion prob­lems.

Harm­ful myths falsely claim that people with albin­ism pos­sess magical powers or bring wealth, a mis­con­cep­tion that has con­trib­uted to dis­crim­in­a­tion, attacks, and ritual killings.

Elab­or­at­ing on her account in the wake of Inter­na­tional Albin­ism Aware­ness Day, com­mem­or­ated on June 13 to pro­mote the rights, dig­nity and inclu­sion of per­sons with albin­ism world­wide, Shiba men­tioned that she had pre­vi­ously been obli­vi­ous to grave dangers faced by people like her.

“After I gradu­ated from Limkok­wing Uni­versity, I relo­cated to North­ern Hho­hho because I got a piece-job as a shop­keeper in a gro­cery shop owned by a rel­at­ive. The com­munity there was very wel­com­ing and I never felt unsafe, even at night,” she said.

The only chal­lenge she knew and had exper­i­enced as a per­son with albin­ism was dis­crim­in­a­tion. Being vul­ner­able to murder for ritual pur­poses was a myth to her until the day she got a grave warn­ing that saved her life.

Recount­ing the events of that day, she stated:

“The com­munity mem­ber came to the shop where I worked.

He said he wanted my father’s con­tact num­ber. I was scep­tical about giv­ing it to him, but he insisted with some urgency.”

She yiel­ded after the man bluntly told her that she was not safe and must ensure she did not close the shop late that day.

“He called my father and I over­heard the con­ver­sa­tion. He informed him about a plot to take my life and that it was a done deal. I had been sold, that night would be the one I dis­ap­peared,” she stated.

Shiba also over­heard that a cer­tain witch­doc­tor or sor­cerer was part of the group and had approved her as a suit­able tar­get. He would be there to over­see the ritual pro­cess of the killing. The fact that she had a small child, though without albin­ism, was viewed as a bonus. Shiba was going to ‘dis­ap­pear’ with her child.

“When he fin­ished the phone con­ver­sa­tion, before depart­ing, he gave me another stern warn­ing not to tell any­one what I had heard.

Shortly after­wards, I received a call from my father, who told me to pack up and find someone to carry on with the shop the fol­low­ing day because he would be fetch­ing me before even­ing,” she explained.

Shiba remem­bers being emo­tion­ally trau­mat­ised by the visit and feel­ing weak at the knees with fear due to sud­den real­isa­tion she was never com­pletely safe due to her albin­ism.

Early that even­ing, her par­ents arrived in a car and took her and her child away without giv­ing any hint that it was, in fact, a des­per­ate escape.

She recalled that the com­munity mem­ber who warned her father hin­ted dur­ing the phone call that the homestead involved in the deadly plot was nearby.

These were people she inter­ac­ted with almost daily and would never have sus­pec­ted to har­bour such inten­tions. Look­ing back, she says the incid­ent became a turn­ing point that fuelled her dis­trust of people — something that per­sists to this day. It takes time for her to let down her guard.

“I don’t hitch­hike or accept lifts unless it is from someone very close and trus­ted. I rely on pub­lic trans­port and would rather go back home than accept a lift from strangers,” she added.

Since that day, she has also become sens­it­ive to noises at night. The slight­est sound in or out­side the house wakes her up, and she listens care­fully to determ­ine its nature.

Over the years, Shiba chan­nelled that fear into advocacy by join­ing the Swazi­l­and Asso­ci­ation of Per­sons with Albin­ism (SAPA), where she has since risen to the pos­i­tion of pres­id­ent.

“I’ve also become a motiv­ator for per­sons with albin­ism and try to fight for our rights. Apart from threats to our lives, we suf­fer social dis­crim­in­a­tion a lot, as many people have wrong inform­a­tion about albin­ism,” she said.

“There’s still a long way to go in edu­cat­ing the nation and debunk­ing all the myths.”

Source: Woman with albin­ism recounts escape from ritual murder