Fears of a fresh round of bloody fights between Mungiki sect adherents and vigilantes resurfaced on Monday after the killing of two suspected sect members.
The dawn killings at Ihwagi village in Mathira came barely three days after Mungiki leader Maina Njenga was acquitted of the murder of 29 people allegedly by sect members in the area last April.
Those who witnessed yesterday’s incident said about 50 men armed with pangas, rungus and axes went after the two youths on claims that they were involved in the Gathaithi massacre on the night of April 20.
One victim, Patrick Kamau, 27, was flushed out of a ceiling of the house where he had hidden.
The other youth, 22-year-old Charles Muriuki, a Form Two student, was taken from his one-bedroom timber house, about 200 metres from the home of the first victim. The two were cousins.
Area MP Ephraim Maina, who visited the bereaved families, blamed the police, saying that they should be on the look-out to ensure that such retaliatory attacks did not happen.
At the same time, he warned the residents against taking the law in their hands.
“We want the police, not residents, to deal with criminal matters,” he said.
Mr Joseph Kiraita, the father of one of the victims, said the gang claimed to be vigilantes from the neighbouring Kagochi village.
Vigilantes have been active in neighbouring Kirinyaga, where they have killed several youths suspected to be members of the sect.
Armed themselves
At a recent meeting with church leaders in Nyeri, Gichugu MP Martha Karua said that more than 100 youths had been killed since residents armed themselves against the sect members.
Central provincial deputy criminal investigation officer Sebastian Wandera said the victims were not among 18 youths recently released together with Mungiki leader Maina Njenga from King’ong’o Prison, adding that investigations were going on to establish the killers.
“The youths were wanted by the locals after escaping from the area in April. They only returned after there was calm,” he said.
He said both bodies had deep panga cuts in the neck and the head. The bodies were collected by the police on a murram road where they had been dumped, about 100 metres from Ihwagi Shopping Centre.
Source: Daily NATION
Comments