Elders perform rituals to solve Yebei mystery

The family of Mr Meshack Yebei, the ICC witness who went missing last year, has turned to traditional rituals to try and solve the mystery of his disappearance.

Mr Calvin Kibet Chemiron, his first cousin, said eight elders conducted rituals on Saturday at their home in Sugoi, Uasin Gishu County.

He said the family had turned to “African wisdom” to bring to book the people responsible for their relative’s disappearance.

“We are Christians and so we are going to combine all that.”

TRADITIONAL RITUALS

Mr Chemiron said whoever was involved in the disappearance would be revealed.

“Where science and legal processes have failed, these traditional rituals cannot fail.

“By June, I can assure something will have come up,” he said.

He said the elders had never failed. “Our elders used to conduct these rituals even during the colonial period and they have never gone wrong.

“We are 100 per cent sure that they will yield positive fruits.”

The Kalenjin rituals are always performed in secret, mostly at night.

Ms Clara Yebei, the missing man’s sister, accused police of carrying out “shoddy” investigations on a body that was found floating on a river after her brother’s disappearance. The family had claimed the body as Mr Yebei’s, but fingerprint and DNA tests proved them wrong. The body was revealed to that of Mr Yusuf Hussein from Nandi County, who had also disappeared.

“We positively identified the body of our brother at the mortuary,” she said. It was found to be that of Hussein and handed over to his family for burial.

FAMILY TORTURED

“We want the government to tell us the whereabouts of Meshack,” said Ms Yebei.

She said her family had been psychologically tortured by the disappearance of her brother.

Mr Yebei disappeared on December 28 last year and his whereabouts remains mysterious.

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations launched a probe into the matter last month after the body was found floating in River Yala in Nandi County.