Tension high in raided villages

A nurse attends to Mr Chrispinus Wanjala at Bungoma District Hospital last week following an attack on Mayanja village. PHOTO/JARED NYATAYA  NATION

By ERICK NGOBILO engobilo@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Monday, May 6  2013 at  21:18

 

Tension remains high in Bungoma County following a series of attacks on villages in which six people died and more than 100 others were seriously injured.

The Kibabii, Kikwechi and Kimaeti villagers are still stunned by the chilling attacks and blood letting visited on them by the heavily-armed gangsters.

They said groups of between 15 and 30 men, armed with pangas, clubs, machetes and stones had been attacking villages in the middle of the night and terrorising residents before maiming them.

The attacks usually last until dawn as the gangs move from house to house in a targeted village, unleashing terror.

Children slashed

No one was spared — old men, women and children, some as young as three years.

The police, who are supposed to protect the villagers, appear to have been caught napping, and the criminals move with ease unleashing terror on villagers.

“The police only arrive late at the scenes of crime hours after the criminals have left. All they do is start taking the victims to hospitals. They do not pursue the attackers who usually leave on foot,” laments victim Amos Masika.

What has been puzzling about the attacks is that the gangsters strike without an apparent motive. They kill and maim indiscriminately.

The gangsters leave with a few items, but theft is not their main reason. They attack helpless women and children with before vanishing into the night.

Victims told the Nation that the assailants usually begin by wailing and calling for help as though they are the ones being attacked.

A resident of Kikwechi village, Mrs Centrine Lukorito, says unsuspecting villagers usually wake up in response to the wailing and distress they assume are from neighbours only for the criminals, already positioned strategically pounce on them with machetes.

“I heard shouts from my neighbour’s home during a recent attack. He was calling for help saying his wife and children had been hacked. The moment I opened my house in a bid to go and assist, the attackers pounced on me and started maiming me and my family members with a sharp panga,” says Mr Peter Nyongesa of Kikwechi.

According to Mr Nyongesa, the attackers at times knock on targeted houses and call out the names of members of the family purporting to be in need of emergency assistance and once they respond and open the door, the attackers enter in and attack anybody they come across.

Mr Nyongesa says the attackers at times mimic the voices of family members.

Raiders also scream

“One pretended to be my eldest son, Peter, who knocked on my house and pleaded for help claiming to have been attacked. The moment I opened the house, 10 armed men swung into action and began attacking everyone in the house,” says Mr John Wekesa.

Victims say when hell breaks loose and screams are all over, the attackers join in the shouting and begin screaming too to appear like rescuers but, when neighbours approach them, they turn on them and begin hacking them.Villagers fear the gangs could be part of a large group of organised attackers who intend to extend their activities to other areas.