Mungiki kill villagers in night raid

• The Mungiki are believed to have regrouped in Karatina after villagers, fed up with the sect’s tyranny and extortion, had smoked them out.
• Youths from Gathaithi village armed with pangas and rungus, on learning of the attack, started patrols of the area even before the provincial security team left.
• Police say that 62 suspects, who had been arrested, would be charged with the killings.

At Kiaruhiu trading centre, the Nation counted seven bodies, all male, while at Gathaithi, scene of the massacre, there were 18 bodies, some of them hidden in tea bushes.

The killings took place on both sides of River Wamuthambi, which divides Nyeri East and Kirinyaga West. Here the Mungiki has been extorting a toll on households, traders and matatu owners.

Central provincial police officer John M’Mbijjiwe said 62 suspects, who had been arrested, would be charged with the killings.

In an ominous sign that this is far from over, local youths armed with pangas and rungus, on learning of the attack, started patrols of the area even before the provincial security team left.

They swore they would kill all Mungiki members in their midst, but were warned by Mr Rugut against taking the law in their hands.

Tension was so high that a man who was injured in the attack and hid in a tea plantation in Mathaithi village was nearly hacked to death by the villagers when he came out of hiding. He was later taken to hospital.

The PC condemned the killings and asked Mungiki members to abandon their life of crime and surrender to the authorities.

The attackers started their mission at Ms Mathenge’s house, where they smashed windows and roughed up the elderly woman, accusing her of sympathising with villagers who are out to finish Mungiki.

At the timber house where her workers slept, they killed one worker and set it on fire with two inside. On Tuesday, Ms Mathenge was still in shock and could not even remember the names of her workers.

Twenty two-year-old Jemimah Wanjira was in the house that was burnt. Her husband, who was in the house with her, is missing and is yet to be found.

“They started throwing stones at the house but when my husband came out, they started hitting him up with pangas. They later flushed me out together with my two children and ordered me to sit on the grass as they torched the house,” she said.

Ms Mathenge said the man who was burnt beyond recognition was Ms Wanjira’s husband.