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Families Cry Foul Over Kisii Killings
- Details
- Published on Monday, 16 July 2007 22:22
What the mother of five went through on that fateful June 26 could only be described as horrible, barbaric, and brutal by witnesses.Albert Osoro's eyes widen as he recalls when his mother was brutally killed on suspicion of being a witch.
"I was standing outside our compound when I suddenly saw a mob moving in to surround my parents' house. I ran back into the compound and climbed an avocado tree to see what the invaders were up to," says Mr Osoro.
Moments later, one of the raiders forcefully took away the family's last born child, Maureen, 5, who was on the mother's laps, lying sick, and threw her out through the front door as others forced the terrified mother out through a window before dragging her to an adjacent garden.
"A voice urged me to shout for help from the tree top but a villager who had spotted me signalled me to stay silent or also risk the wrath of the mob.They were heavily armed with machetes and clubs and I stayed silent," he tearfully recounts.Seconds later, it was all horror as the mob descended on the wailing and helpless woman with all sorts of weapons, beating and slashing her into pieces in broad daylight.
Ms Osoro's mutilated body was then doused with petrol and set ablaze as well as her grass-thatched house.
And true to the warnings to Albert, 20 ,and a Form Three student, another young man Victor Ndege, who tried to intervene, paid a bitter price - he too was hacked to death.His friend, Onsembe Nyamari ,managed to escape with serious injuries, but succumbed a few days later while being treated at Kisii General Hospital.
The raiders, however, still had unfinished business and pounced on a nearby homestead belonging to Mr Francis Nyakundi and burnt three houses.He was also accused of practising witchcraft.The 46-year-old Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) official was away from home but the raiders traced him to a tea buying centre some two kilometres away.
"They pounced on him as he waited to sell his tea leaves and dragged him for about 100 metres from the centre and chopped his body into pieces using pangas. They then burnt his body," said Mr Nyakundi's widow Alice Bosibori, 30.
Mr Nyakundi had unsuccessfully contested the Keumbu civic seat in the 1997 and was planning to vie for it next year.
Barely a week later, on July 4, five suspected witches who had been rounded up by a mob were rescued by police in Bonchari constituency.
The elderly suspects were accused of abducting a Form Three student in Bonyando Village who returned home the following day numb.
Such incidents, however, remain just pointers of a wave of violence in the district that has seen scores of people lose their lives on suspicion of practising witchcraft.
Investigations by Nation revealed, however, that though lives continued to be lost, most residents are unable to prove existence of the practice with the victims' families demanding justice.
"Believe me, if you went back to those claiming they are out to weed out witchcraft, they may not tell you what it is in the first place. They killed my sister-in-law (Ms Osoro) for no reason at all. Our God is alive and is watching them and they will have to pay for the life of the poor woman who stuck to her business and never crossed anyone's path," said Mr Samson Ondigo.
The son adds: "I saw them rob her of her life. I may be able to meet her killers one day and for sure I will remind them she was an upright mother,"Mr Nyakundi's widow and his younger brother Mr Nahashon Nyaome expressed bitterness over the attacks and maintained he was innocent.
"The Government owes us an explanation as to why the law of the jungle has been allowed to prevail, yet we have a right to protection from the State," says Mr Nyaome.She says she has been living in constant fear of death since the attack on her husband.
"Who knows I could be next because if they were heartless enough to take away the life of an innocent man they could come for me too."Several residents who spoke to Nation on condition of anonymity claimed the witch-hunting raids are organised by criminal groups for different purposes.
"Most of us are blindly sucked into the attacks by strangers who claim to be members of various vigilante groups. They move around claiming to be acting on intelligence reports," says an elderly resident of Keoke Village.
Another villager says the vigilante groups operate with knowledge of the local police and administration under they guise of fighting criminals and are being used to settle scores.
"Some people are known to provide false alarm just to settle old scores, but the repercussions are often tragic with many innocent lives being lost," she says.
Another resident, however, justifies some of the killings: "There is no way accusations could be heaped on specific people without any hints of possible involvement in witchcraft. Where there is smoke, there is fire."
