The UN says at least 75 albinos have been killed in Tanzania since 2000, many hacked to death by people who wanted their body parts for black magic. These albino children (pictured in 2009), who live with blind children at the Mitindo boarding school in Misungui, in northern Tanzania, are protected by teachers and a team of security guards who patrol the school and surrounding areas 24 hours a day. But others do not have such protection, and fall prey to brutal attacks

Baraka Cosmas Lusambo (left), aged six, and Mwigulu Matonange Magesa, 12, were attacked in western Tanzania in March. A US charity paid for the children, and three others, to travel to the US and be fitted with protheses at Shriners hospital for children in Philadelphia. Here, Baraka and Mwigulu play before an occupational therapy session. In March, Tanzania’s president, Jakaya Kikwete, said albino killings brought shame on the nation and vowed to stamp out the practice. Dozens of witch doctors have been arrested this year

Baraka and Mwigulu pass a block to one another during an occupational therapy session. They have been in the US since June. After a few months of therapy with their new limbs, the children will return home to safe houses in Tanzania run by Under the Same Sun. The Global Medical Relief Fund, which organised the children’s treatment, will bring them back to the US to get new prostheses as they grow

Monica Watson (left) from the Global Medical Relief Fund, Ester Rwela, from Under the Same Sun, and occupational therapist Amanda Wodzinski (right) help Mwigulu put on his prosthetic limb. In March, the UN reported that at least 15 albinos were abducted, wounded or killed in east Africa over the previous six months. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, decried the ‘stunningly vicious’ attacks. He said many people with albinism were living in fear, with some children dropping out of school

Kabula Nkarango Masanja, 17, with Elissa Montanti, founder and director of the Global Medical Relief Fund, during a prosthetic limb fitting at the hospital. Kabula said her attackers asked her family for money, and that her mother offered the family’s bicycle because they had none. The attackers refused, held the girl down and in three hacks cut off her right arm to the armpit

Montanti with Pendo Sengerema Noni (right), aged 15, and Kabula, during a prosthetic limb fitting. Albinism is a congenital disorder that robs skin, hair and eyes of their pigment. It affects about one in 20,000 people worldwide, although it is more common in Tanzania, where an estimated one in every 1,400 people have albinism

Pendo (left) and Kabula play a memory game in New York. Earlier this year, Tanzania introduced a ban on witchcraft to try to stop the trade in albino body parts

Montanti wanted to make sure the children also got to enjoy some classic American summer activities between bouts of treatment. Here, Mwigulu blows up a beach ball on a beach in New Jersey

Mwigulu (left) and Baraka help each other put their prosthetic limbs in a bag after a therapy session at Shriners hospital. A study by the Red Cross found that witch doctors in Africa will pay up to $75,000 (£49,000) for a full set of albino body parts

Mwigulu holds his prosthetic arm by his side as he studies English with Ester Rwela, a social worker, in Staten Island, New York

Emmanuel Festo Rutema, 13, carries a dictionary back to a shelf during his lesson with Mwigulu in Staten Island. Emmanuel had surgery to attach a toe to his right hand to allow him to grasp objects

Kabula holds back tears as she listens to Montanti before boarding a plane at New York’s JFK airport to travel back to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. After more than two months in the US, Kabula is travelling back ahead of the other children to take a national test to get into secondary school.‘War is one thing, stepping on a land mine is one thing,’ Montanti told Thomson Reuters. ‘But this is so deliberate. It is one human to another, causing such incredible pain that I can’t comprehend it’