How Terrible!!

There is a haunting photo by Alain Keler in the October 1993 issue of Life magazine. It is of a boy playing a flute. The boy, named Jensen, is only ten years old, but he probably can play some very sad songs. For when you took at his eyes-or where his eyes should be beneath his long, dark bangs-you see only redness, empty sockets. Jensen lives in a charitable institution in Bogotd, Colombia.

Blindness is always tragic, but the cause of blindness in this case only multiplies the sorrow. In the caption next to the photo, Robert Sullivan explains that the boy was likely the victim of "organ nappers." Eye thieves.

When Jensen was ten months old, reports his mother, she took him to the hospital with acute diarrhea. The next day when she returned, bandages covered Jensen's eyes. Dried blood was spattered on his body. Horrified, she asked the doctor what had happened.

He answered harshly, "Can't you see your child is dying?" and dismissed her.

She rushed Jensen to another hospital in Bogotd. After examining him, the doctor gave chilling news: "They've stolen his eyes."

Jensen is somewhat fortunate. He is alive. The organ traffickers usually kill their victims, excise body parts, and broker them to those willing to pay for healthy kidney or cornea transplants.

Organ thieves in Bogotd, Colombia, are not the only ones stealing eyes. There is someone who steals a person's ability to see in an even more tragic way: Satan.