Two residents recall Bloody Monday events

When he sensed that the commotion in the usually quiet Mpeketoni had increased, Mr Jones Thuo went to the balcony of his house and looked out.

Moments later, he would be crawling, not knowing whether the blood trickling from his forehead was a life-threatening injury or a scratch.

He saw from behind the metal grills that some people in two 14-seater vans and a lorry had stopped at a junction about 100 metres away. They were in military fatigues.
They began walking towards Mama Monica Guest House. The tall, light-skinned one who looked like their leader saw him.

Mr Thuo remembers seeing the man raise his gun before he ducked and fell. “I think he could not see me well because there was no bulb at the balcony and we had switched off the lights in the sitting room when the gunfire and explosions became too loud to bear,” he told the Nation Tuesday.

He said about six bullets were fired at him from two directions; by the apparent commander and another man who took position on the back of a pick-up truck opposite his house.

Mr Thuo on Tuesday pointed where bullets from the attackers hit the wall above him, blasting chunks of masonry and ricocheting off.

He would eventually find a bullet head lying harmless on his back. Mr Thuo’s neighbour who used to work at the Equity Bank branch was killed.The building was one of the hardest hit.

As Mr Thuo lay on the balcony, with his wife crawling back and forth and helping clean his bloodied face, the attackers entered the building, called everybody out and killed the men.
He said he was one of only three men who survived the killings.

Separating of men

From the gaps in the ventilation bricks on the lower part of the front of the balcony, he witnessed the separating of men from the rest, the stabbing and shooting in the back of the head. The attackers also forced open the doors of Kewa Shop, next the guest House and looted it.

They are reported to have taken sweets, money, sugar and bottled water before burning the building.

Mr Jeremiah Murima, a local trader, said the shop opens till late because many of its customers watch football matches at a makeshift video den across the road. The iron sheet structure was burnt.

Mr Murima’s car and that of his sister were destroyed. Mr Murima and Mr Thuo were among residents who were unhappy at the response by police which they said was very slow.

“When they arrived, they behaved as if they had only come to collect the bodies,” he added.

As we left, Mr Thuo’s neighbour, a man in distress, sat at the stairs and lit a cigarette. He said he stood behind a door during the attack as his brother left the room. He only discovered he had been killed hours later.

Mr Muchiri Chege, who lives in an area called Umoja said when he heard the shots and saw fire a little distance away, he stepped out the house to join his neighbours by the road.

“The matatu came from the other direction and its headlights were off. It stopped suddenly and I heard gunshots,” he said.

Everybody fled. He said he found some neighbours in the bush and he later knocked on other doors to advise them not to spend the night in their houses.
He eventually ended up at Mpeketoni Hospital.

“We actually wanted to tell the vehicles’ occupants not to go into the town because of the trouble there,” said Mr Chege.