Religion News Blog is a non-profit service providing academics, religion professionals and other researchers with religion & cult news

Religion news articles about religious cults, sects, world religions, and related issues

Navigation:

Search

Police sent to villages to protect residents from Mungiki attacks

Daily Nation, Kenya
Jan. 29, 2006
Fred Mukinda and Oliver Musembi
www.nationmedia.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Sunday January 29, 2006

Hundreds of armed policemen were yesterday sent to a number of villages in Maragwa District to protect the residents against Mungiki attacks.

A Mungiki suspect had been killed and 200 others arrested during a clash between members and police on Friday evening.

Eye-witnesses said he was hit by a vehicle.

A police officer suffered a deep cut in the head.

Hundreds of members had travelled to the villages for the burial of four colleagues lynched by Githunguri and Ngurwe-ini villagers about two weeks ago.

Central province deputy police chief Sammy Maritim, who led the security team, said the group had planned to avenge the killings.

The sect members, most of whom had travelled from Nairobi, confronted the police after the burials.

More than 50 vehicles that they had come in were impounded and towed to the Makuyu and Kabati police stations.

The Sunday Nation team visited the stations yesterday and established that most of the vehicles plied Nairobi routes such as between Kayole and Huruma and the city centre.

During the confrontation, the snuff-snorting members threw stones at the police and smashed vehicle windscreens.

Police responded by lobbing teargas canisters and firing into the air.

Yesterday, there was a heavy police presence as the last victim was buried at Ngurwe-ini.

Contingents of General Service Unit as well as regular and administration police officers patrolled the roads in lorries, while others camped at Ngurwe-ini, Githunguri and Gachocho.

Police said the suspects in custody were found with paraphernalia associated with Mungiki, including snuff, tobacco and flags bearing red, black, green and white colours.

They also had machetes and other weapons, although no injuries were reported.

But when the five were lynched at Kagumo-ini, four-year-old schoolboy Frank Kiarie was hit with a stone hurled by a Mungiki youth. He died in hospital later in the day.

Armed with stones, machetes, clubs and sticks, the Kagumoini residents beat them to death one by one, and displayed their bodies at the local trading centre where the bodies were picked up by police.

Two days after the incident, an assistant commissioner of police in charge of city operations, Mr Julius Ndegwa, Central police station boss Patrick Oduma and another officer were injured when Mungiki protesters shot at them in Nairobi.

Police commissioner Hussein Ali immediately ordered a nationwide crackdown. Scores of them have since been arrested, mostly in the city and Central province.

Internal Security minister John Michuki announced a fresh crackdown, saying that police had been instructed to ensure the sect was wiped out.