Gang kills MP’s parents and sets their home ablaze in revenge raid

Gangsters raided the home of Nyakach MP Aduma Owuor, bludgeoned his parents to death and set their house ablaze.

Three men barged into the home at 7.30pm, went straight into the kitchen where the MP’s mother Mary Owuor, 70, was preparing supper and hit her on the head with an object.

They then walked into the living room and attacked Mr Francis Owuor, locked the house from the outside and set it on fire as they fled. The 80-year-old had only last month had heart surgery at Nairobi’s MP Shah Hospital.

According to a distraught Mr Owuor, the gang grabbed a farmhand as he walked to a local shop to buy mobile phone credit, locked him in a store and switched off the electricity from the meter box and proceeded on their deadly mission.

They did not harm the farmhand, a 17-year-old who lived with the couple and who was taken away by police to help with investigations.

“They have now killed my parents; when I said my life was in danger, none of the people in the security circles believed me. Instead they started trailing me like a criminal. The attackers got into the home as early as 7.30pm and went ahead with the attacks. The neighbours learnt of the attack far much later at 1am,” Mr Owuor said at the home in Kadiang’a Village, Kisumu. “It seems there was a struggle. They hit her with a blunt object on the head and then went to the main house to attack my father,” he added.

Overcome with emotion, Mr Owuor walked away from the crowd that had thronged the home in the rain-soaked night.

SHOUTING FOR HELP

Neighbours only got to know about the attack from 1am when the farmhand escaped from the store and screamed for help. Mrs Mary Obura, who was among the first to reach the scene said she found the body of the MP’s mother at the kitchen door, while Mr Owuor was groaning in pain as the fire engulfed the house.

“When we arrived at the home, the house was on fire. We could hear him shout for help and then all of a sudden his voice died down,” Mrs Obura said, adding that the fire was fanned by strong winds.

Another neighbour, Mr Tom Otieno, said that he had seen a four-wheel drive car around the home early in the evening and he thought it belonged to the MP.

“We did not suspect anything unusual and we didn’t pay any attention to the car’s registration number” he said.

The attack came barely three weeks after the MP reported to Parliament that his life was in danger because of the tough stance he had taken over insecurity in the constituency.

Three months ago, Mr Aduma led his constituents in a protest march over insecurity during which they dumped the body of a man who had been killed by cattle rustlers at the Nyanza Regional Coordinator’s office.

He accused the authorities of failing to arrest suspects behind the cattle raids.

He said: “We organised our local security team and arrested some of the suspects who confessed that they were behind the spate of attacks. When we handed them over to the police, we were shocked that they arrived home before us and were already threatening us.”

Kisumu West MP Olago Aluoch, who is Mr Aduma’s brother in-law, said: “We don’t want to speculate, but we want to know who wanted to harm the MP. We are not taking anything for granted because  this could be a well-planned move to silence those fighting insecurity.”

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga sent his condolences to the family and described the act of violence as “an extreme case of evil that is difficult to understand.”

Kisumu County police commander Charles Narangwi said he could not comment on the motive of the attack after investigations.