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New Crime Wave Hits Rural Areas

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Published on Monday, 02 July 2007 02:50
  
 
 
   
   
  
For a long time armed robbery in the country has been associated with the big towns. The trend is now changing and rural areas are currently the worst hit by this form of crime which was rare before:

NYAMIRA

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With the completion of tarmacking Kisii -Chemosit road, , a new wave of crime is now being witnessed in the region. Before the opening up of this road, highway robberies and gun-totting gangsters, were unheard of in the district.

The gangsters are now armed with all sorts of weapons which include the dreaded AK-47 rifles. Travellers are robbed at illegal road blocks, revellers are mugged at night, traders and residents are burgled... indeed, this has now become part of life in this part of the country.


KISII

Reported crime incidents in Kisii have gone down by over 60 per cent over the last six months. The town police boss Mr Peter Maloba says over the same period, violent crime incidents have declined while assault cases seem to have either slightly gone up or remained constant.

"We so far have 163 reported crime cases as compared to 500 six months ago" said Mr Maloba. While police attribute the decline to stringent police patrol measures, members of the public are proud they heeded the call to form vigilante groups to deal with rising insecurity.

Mr Maloba says the brutal move by the police to gun down seven suspected gangsters mid last year scared off their accomplices, with residents fearing the gang may have shifted their operations to rural areas.

But the Catholic Church's Kisii Diocese has its own views on the state of security in Kisii district particularly. Fr Lawrence Nyaanga says because residents have lost faith in the police to protect them and effectively eradicate criminal activities, they have resorted to organising their own security.