Mungiki targets boys to swell its numbers

Security agents are on high alert in central Kenya following reports that the outlawed Mungiki sect was planning a massive recruitment drive.

“We have information that Mungiki are targeting primary schoolboys as young as 14 to swell their numbers,” provincial commissioner Japhter Rugut said.

He said in Mukurwe-ini District, 50 youths were arrested at an oath taking ceremony near Mukurwe-ini Town. Oath taking paraphernalia including knives, animal products and tobacco were recovered.

On Monday, six youths were arrested in a field at Kikuyu in Kiambu but more than 200 others fled. Tobacco, raw animal parts and mattresses were found at the scene.

Twin brothers

Mr Rugut also said the government was working with villagers in organising the burial of 30 villagers killed in Gathaithi by suspected Mungiki members on April 20. He said the burial was planned for Saturday.

In a related development, the bodies of twin brothers who went missing after the massacre have been found at Karatina District Hospital mortuary.

“We were able to identify them by their clothes,” a family member, Mr Douglas Wanjao said.

The 22-year-old twins - Festus Mugo and Steven Kago -failed to return home after the massacre and family members had been combing the area in search of their bodies.

Meanwhile, the State will foot the burial bills for four people, including two police informers, who were killed when gangsters raided Kathita slum in Embu West District.

District commissioner Mohammed Maalim said one of the informers was beheaded.

“They chopped off the head of an informer, a woman, and fled with it,” he said.