One in a million! One man’s 700km ride away from Lamu killing fields

The time was a few minutes after 9 p.m. last Saturday, and Kennedy Muriuki had just had the last bite of his supper — a mix of ugali, peas and vegetables — at ab eatery in Hindi, Lamu County.

Mr Muriuki and other residents were already living in fear following attacks in nearby Mpeketoni and Gamba. He soon found out that his anxiety was not misplaced.

“Just as I was about to wash down the food with a glass of water, I heard gunshots some metres away,” he said.
That Saturday, he had watched TV as Argentina beat Belgium 1-0 in the first of two World Cup quarter-final matches played that day.

Mr Muriuki had taken advantage of the two-hour break between the matches have his dinner and was looking forward to a more scintillating contest between The Netherlands and Costa Rica later at 11 p.m.

But this was not to be. He dashed out and hid behind a log on the roadside where he passed the night in fear. 

He could hear men wailing as the attackers slit their throats. Later, he would learn that the assailants went to his mother’s house a few minutes after the second match had kicked off.

“My mother grabbed my nine-year-old sister, as she would later tell me, and took off to the bush with our lastborn clutching on to mum’s back. My other sister was in school at Lamu Girls,” he said.

Like everyone else who had survived the night of terror, Mr Muriuki emerged from the shelter of the log just after sunrise.
He went to his rented room at Hindi shopping centre, took his motorbike and made for the nearby Kibiboni area where the attackers had concentrated their evil mission.
Along the way, he would stop to view — and take pictures — of men whose lives had been brutally ended.

All the victims he saw were male and had their hands tied to their legs from behind, with their throats slit.
After the short trip, he arrived at his mother’s house, which sits on a five-acre piece of land.

Mr Muriuki feared the worst as he knocked on the door; his fears were momentarily “confirmed” when there was no answer.

As he stood speechless contemplating his next move, Mr Muriuki’s joy was restored almost immediately when his mother rang him and said they were safe.
Mr Muriuki’s family had also been allocated a five-acre piece of land nearby where he had put up a mud-walled hut that he had allowed a friend to live in.

But with a Grade II certificate in automotive mechanics from the Mombasa Industrial Training Centre, Mr Muriuki had decided to rent a house in Hindi township where he would use his skills to make some money.

But he had planned to move back to his land after he heard the government was planning to issue title deeds. But his mother always thought it was a bad idea, encouraging him to stay at the trading centre.

On the fateful night, the attackers found Mr Muriuki’s friend inside the house with a visitor. He was butchered and his body left outside, with a Bible placed on his back.
A few metres away, the male visitor’s lifeless body lay. Both the victims’ hands were tied.

“It was like a scene from a horror movie,” Mr Muriuki told the Sunday Nation in an interview in Nairobi on Friday.

After the attack, the Somalia-based al-Shabaab terrorist organisation claimed responsibility just as they did in the aftermath of the Mpeketoni violence that left at least 69 dead. 

In the wake of the attacks, Mr Muriuki says he attended several meetings between residents and senior government officials — including one addressed by Deputy President William Ruto—where the locals were reassured of their security.

“But nobody believed them because the attacks have continued in other areas, even with police reinforcements,” he said.
As some residents boarded buses on Sunday and relocated to safer areas, others dared fate and stayed put. Mr Muriuki and his mother were among those who remained.

But two days later, they decided they had had enough after hate leaflets urging Christians to leave the area were distributed.
“They tried to torch a local school, and when it wouldn’t burn, they wrote a chilling warning on a blackboard,” he says.

On Tuesday, he dismantled his mother’s pay TV satellite dish, took down the solar panel and put them inside the house.

Mr Muriuki’s mother withdrew her second-born, a Form One student from Lamu Girls, packed their belongings and, along with her three other daughters, boarded a bus to Karatina, Nyeri County.
“My mother was born in Karatina in a family of nine, and her parents just had one acre of land; that is where we are going to start life afresh.”

In the 1980s, Mr Muriuki’s mother had found a job and settled in Hindi where all of her children were born.

That Tuesday evening, Mr Muriuki also packed a few of his clothes and documents, got on his motorbike and went to the bus stop. He found many other terrified people waiting to board buses to safer areas. All the buses at the station were packed to capacity.

When he enquired about the bus fare, he was shocked. “It would have cost me Sh5,000 from Hindi to Mombasa and Sh6,000 from Mombasa to Nairobi. I have no idea how much I would have paid from Nairobi to Karatina,” he said.

Muriuki had only Sh1,200 in cash and Sh2,000 in his M-Pesa account sent by an aunt. It was hardly enough.
“I went back home and early the following morning put on warm clothing — two trousers, a vest, a shirt, two sweaters and a heavy jacket,” he said. “I was going to ride.”
To keep warm, he cut up a cardboard box and tied part of it on his lower legs and fixed another piece between the sweaters.

The rubber was about to hit the road. At 7.35 a.m. he set off on his 1500cc motorcycle christened “One In A Million” to Mombasa, a distance of 325 km. It would take him nine hours.
At 4.30 p.m., Mr Muriuki was in Mombasa. “I had to change the chain and fix a few things for the long journey ahead,” he said.

In the meantime, Mr Muriuki telephoned a former colleague at Tudor Water Sports in Mombasa where he had worked previously. He wanted a place to spend the night. “He takes care of the yachts so he has a place to sleep within the hotel,” Mr Muriuki said. His friend was more than willing to offer comfort, allowing Mr Muriuki to freshen up and charge his phone. 

At 4 a.m. on Thursday, Muriuki set off on the second leg of his journey, some 500 kilometres to Nairobi. At Mariakani, he refuelled.
He arrived at Makindu at 2 p.m. where he stopped for lunch before taking selfies.

Mr Muriuki then called a cousin who lives in Kitengela and again sought accommodation.

“As I was approaching Nairobi, it became very cold, but I had no gloves, and there was nothing to do about that. Eventually, I arrived in Kitengela at 6 p.m. where I spent the night,” he said.
After our interview, he was going to proceed to Karatina, about 140 km north from the city. By the time he is done, Mr Muriuki will have covered almost 700 km on his beloved “One In A Million” motorbike.

“The weather is unforgiving, but then so are the killers, so I will soldier on,” he concluded.

There were pictures of his farm on his phone; a farm with mature crops, including vegetables, ripe mangoes and pineapples. “I was making a living for myself in Lamu, but that is all history.”

The frustration in his voice is inescapable. Mr Muriuki says he won’t return to Hindi unless there are real assurances about his security. By yesterday, more than 5,000 families had fled the area.

Mass displacement
A sense of hopelessness has engulfed residents of Lamu and Tana River counties after repeated attacks despite government assurances that security agencies are in control of the situation.
Survivors described the attackers, estimated to be between 30 and 50, as bearded young men, mainly of Somali origin.

Unlike the twin attacks in Mpeketoni last month where the attackers used powerful rifles and bazookas, in the latest wave of violence, attackers used knives to slit victims’ throats and shot others. Most of the victims were men.

The most recent incidents took place at Pandanguo village on Thursday, and Lamu Conservation Trust on Wednesday. No deaths were reported, but the burning of buildings and a vehicle only deepened the sense of helplessness.

The situation has created mass displacement, forcing at least 5,000 families in Lamu and Tana Delta to flee their homes. At least 15 schools have been closed with more than 4,000 pupils said to have moved out with their parents

The first attack on Mpeketoni trading centre that started the night of June 14 and continued into the following day left at least 69 people dead. Eight others were killed in Poromoko, hours after Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku and Inspector-General of Police David Kimaiyo flew to the county.

Less than four days later, five men were killed in a similar fashion in Kakate and Maleli on the outskirts of Witu trading centre, and last weekend 12 others were killed around Hindi and Maremande villages. The same night Gamba police station was raided, and nine civilians and a senior police officer killed.

A common strand that is causing anxiety are eyewitness accounts claiming the attackers were not in a hurry to complete their bloody mission as they faced little or no resistance from security officers. Some were even said to take time to pray, lecture their victims or even ask for food.

And every time top officials — including President Uhuru Kenyatta, his Deputy William Ruto, the Interior Cabinet Secretary and the Inspector General — assured residents of security, the attackers defiantly struck again with frightening ease.

They have had a field day carrying out systematic killings, sometimes taking time to tie victims’ hands behind their backs. Instead of “wasting bullets”, as some of them said, they slit their victims’ throats with long, sharp knives.

Security officers who spoke to the Sunday Nation on condition of anonymity admitted they had not had any encounter with the attackers despite being deployed to the hot spots in Lamu and Tana River counties. It is as though the assailants simply appear, commit crimes and disappear into thin air.

“We have never encountered them. There were few officers on the ground until after the Hindi attack when we had the first deployment. But we now have more GSU, regular and administration police, and Kenya Defence Forces personnel,” said a senior officer.

Deputy Inspector-General of Police Samuel Arachi is heading a force of more than 500 personnel combined from the Rural Border Patrol Unit of the Administration Police, the Rapid Deployment Unit, GSU and regular police officers.

The Kenya Defence Forces have also reportedly deployed a special team to back up the operation that is supported by at least two helicopters.

But Mr John Kimani, a Hindi resident, wondered why the officers have never pursued the attackers into Boni, Witu, Pangani, Pandanguo and Kipini forests where they are thought to be hiding.
A dejected young man in Hindi on Thursday shouted at local administrators in the presence of this reporter, showing the rising frustration. “We shall buy guns and protect ourselves. You seem to be afraid of these ruthless criminals,” he said.

The identity of the attackers has been a subject of controversy, especially after President Uhuru Kenyatta blamed “local political networks” targeting a particular community despite al-Shabaab claiming responsibility for some of the violence.

Intelligence officers are also pursuing suggestions of the involvement of the Mombasa Republican Council or an unholy alliance of Coast-based terrorist cells and local armed groups with land grievances.

A senior government administrator, who requested anonymity, also questioned the strategies being used by security forces.
“We can only see the might of security agencies by the numbers of uniformed officers in the back of vehicles being driven fast along the Lamu-Witu Road. What they need to do is to disembark from their vehicles and work together with chiefs and Kenya Police Reservists to comb these forests and flush out the attackers,” said the official.

But junior officers who spoke on condition of anonymity said there is a reluctance to pursue the attackers into the dense forests.

“The heavily armed gunmen have sophisticated weapons, which our guns cannot match. We are also not familiar with the forested areas,” said a police constable.

The officers are also demoralised due to unpaid allowances. “We have been sent without night-out yet we have families back home. Why should we go and fight on empty stomachs?” said an officer.

But a tough-talking Lamu County Commissioner Njenga Miiri on Thursday told the Sunday Nation the government was dismantling the criminal network. However, a few hours after the interview, Pandanguo was attacked.

Mr Miiri described the attacks as the work of “some people with a stubborn agenda”. Asked about their identity, the administrator said: “You will see them. The matter is in court. It is not proper to discuss it.” More than 70 suspects were arrested, including Lamu Governor Issa Timamy, landowner Mahadi Swaleh and matatu driver Dyana Salim.