Mungiki Sect Members Hack Girl, 13, to Death

The Nation (Nairobi)/June 16, 2004
By Cyrus Kinyungu

A 13-year-old school girl was slashed to death as suspected Mungiki sect members unleashed terror on residents of Nairobi's Mlango Kubwa estate on Monday evening.

Ms Evelyne Mumbua, a Standard Five pupil at Pangani Primary School in the city, was slashed with a panga on her neck as she peeped outside their house.

Neighbours said blood gushed out of the deep wound on the back side of her neck splattering their door and the walls of their neighbour's houses.

When Nation visited her home yesterday, the door and walls of the house still had the blood marks.

Neighbours said Ms Mumbua opened the door when she heard commotion outside their house. She came out and the first people she met were a group of suspected Mungiki members who were running along the path slashing everybody who came their way.

A woman who lives some metres from Ms Mumbua's house said one of the suspected Mungiki men cut her neck with a panga and she fell down. She said they ordered everybody else to get inside their houses.

"Every time we tried to take the girl to hospital, the thugs came running and ordered us to leave her to die," said a neighbour who did not want to be named.

A grief-stricken Ms Christine Nduku, the girl's mother, said she had gone to church when her daughter was killed.

The incident comes only a week after the severed head of a sect defector was found dumped at a Nairobi bus stop.

The severed head of Simon Ndabi Kamore was wrapped in a green paper bag and dumped at the OTC bus stop on the city's Race Course road. Police believe it was meant to be grim warning against the would-be defectors. The body of the deceased is yet to be found.

The sect members have been waging an underground war against its defectors. It is believed the war has so far claimed 14 people.

On Monday Nairobi police chief Mwangi King'ori said: "The city has three major problems, which are very much related and intertwined. These are Mungiki, carjackings ."

"We received the message Mungiki was trying to send by beheading its defector and dumping his head at a bus stop. Starting from last weekend, we began sending a very powerful reply that will make them regret," Mr King'ori said.

The officer said the police had opted to remain "faceless" to deal with the "faceless" Mungiki gang. Yesterday, he said about 150 suspected Mungiki members have been arrested and a number of firearms recovered.

Yesterday, residents of Mlango Kubwa said the suspected sect members went berserk and started indiscriminately slashing residents after police arrested seven of their key leaders.

They said their attempts to rescue their senior members from the police failed, making them turn their anger against the residents.

"They claimed that we had betrayed them to the police leading to the arrest of their leaders," said one man.

Kasarani police chief S M Makau said the sect members terrorised the residents after seven of their leaders were arrested. They tried to rescue them from the police but the officers overwhelmed, he said.