Horror of Kenya's 'witch' lynchings

By Odhiambo Joseph
BBC News, Kenya

Villagers, many straight from their farms, and armed with machetes, sticks and axes, are shouting and crowding round in a big group in Kenya's fertile Kisii district.

I can't see clearly what is going on, but heavy smoke is rising from the ground and a horrible stench fills the air.

More people are streaming up the hill, some of them with firewood and maize stalks.

Suddenly an old woman breaks from the crowd, screaming for mercy. Three or four people go after her, beat her and drag her back, pushing her onto - what I can now see - is a raging fire.

Burned alive

I was witnessing a horrific practice which appears to be on the increase in Kenya - the lynching of people accused of being witches.

I personally saw the burning alive of five elderly men and women in Itii village.

I had been visiting relatives in a nearby town, when I heard what was happening. I dashed to the scene, accompanied by a village elder.

He reacted as if what we were watching was quite normal, which was shocking for me.

As a stranger I felt I had no choice but to stand by and watch. My fear was that if I showed any sign of disapproval, or made any false move, the angry mob could turn on me.

Not one person was protesting or trying to stop the killing.

Hours later, the police came and removed the charred bodies.

Village youths who took part in the killings told me that the five victims had to die because they had bewitched a young boy.

"Of course some people have been burned. But there is proof of witchcraft," said one youth.

He said that a child had spent the night walking around and then was unable to talk the following morning - except to one of the so-called witches.

I asked the youths whether or not people involved in this supposed witchcraft should be punished.

"Yes, they must be punished, every one," said the first youth.

"We are very angry and that's why we end up punishing these people and even killing them."

His friend agreed: "In other communities, there are witches all round but in Kisii we have come up with a new method, we want to kill these people using our own hands."

I later discovered that the young boy who had supposedly been bewitched, was suffering from epilepsy.

His mother had panicked when he had had an attack.

All too common

The village elder was dismissive of my horror, saying that this kind of thing happens all the time in the western district of Kisii.

He told me about Joseph Ondieki, whose mother had been burned to death less than two months earlier.

I found Joseph and his wife Mary Nyaboke tending vegetables in their small shamba, or homestead.

Mary told me that on the day her mother-in-law had been killed she had been visiting her own parents.

She had heard a noise and discovered the truth when she came home.

She said that in the 20 years she had been married, she had never had any reason to believe her husband's mother was a witch.

Joseph told me he has suffered a lot since his mother died.

"I was born here, but at this stage I feel as if this is not my home any more," he said.

"I cannot visit neighbours or relatives.

"Even when they see me standing by the road side, they point at me, saying: 'That is a son of the witch'.
Joseph Ondieki and his wife Mary
The couple fear they may be the next victims

"And when I go to town they also start wondering what has taken me there. Is it that I am going to give evidence against them?

"When I come back, they say I've been seen at the police station, but I've never been there. I've never reported the matter.

"If I visit the neighbours, I always fear that they might put poison in the food.

"So when I'm forced to visit, I make sure I don't eat anything.

"If I can't get my own food I just have a glass of water and sleep."

I set off with Joseph up the hill towards his house, which was far from the centre of the village.

On the way we passed his mother's house.

A neighbour was reluctant to talk to me and denied even knowing Joseph's mother.

"Here in Kisii, people are being burned on mere allegation and most of them are old," Joseph said.

"We now don't have any old people in the village to consult.

"Even me I'm now approaching 50 years old - I'm afraid that they'll come for me also."

Warning signs

I spent three days in Kisii trying to speak to the authorities, but nobody, neither the police nor the local government officials would talk to me.
map

As night drew in, and it was time for me to leave, Joseph walked with me from his village to where my car was parked.

When we arrived, he begged me to take him with me to Mombasa, where I am based.

It was very difficult for me to leave him behind.

As I drove away I passed signs pinned to trees, warning witches that they would be tracked down.

"We know you by your names", someone had typed in bold.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8119201.stm

Kenya: Kisii's Night of Deadly Witch-Hunt

Walter Menya And Angwenyi Gichana

26 May 2008


Nairobi — Cries of anguish rent the night as the angel of death descended on the inhabitants of Gusii land.

Cries of anguish rent the night as the angel of death descended on the inhabitants of Gusii land. Instead of waking up to tend to their farms as is the norm, several families in Kegogi, Metembe, Nyakeyo and three other villages were mourning their loved ones following an orgy of killing last Tuesday night.

They had fallen prey to a killer gang believed to be members of the Sungusungu vigilante group for ostensibly practising witchcraft.

By dawn, at least 15 people, mostly women lay dead, either burnt to death or cut to pieces by their accusers for taking part in the evil that the residents blame for the underdevelopment in the area.

Besides the acrid smell of death, more than 50 houses were torched, the smouldering embers a stark revelation of the tribulations their former occupants had undergone as their lives were snuffed out of them during the night raid.

In addition, scores were nursing injuries inflicted by the irate villagers who went on the rampage as they searched for suspected witches.

The swoop was code-named Operation Okoa Maisha (Operation Save A Life) after the Kenya Army incursion in the Mount Elgon area for the members of the militant Sabaot Land Defence Force.

Looming trouble

Signs of looming trouble showed when a list of the alleged witches, who were marked to die, was found at Nyamasaria primary school, Kisii Central District earlier in the day.

Marani district officer, James Gitau later held a meeting in the area to cool the tempers, but immediately after the meeting, the villagers regrouped and started torching houses belonging to suspected witches.

"It was late in the night when the lynching started," Mr Gitau said.

A church minister, the Reverend Enoch Obiero, who lost his wife, Ebisiba in the raid, said that they were ambushed by a group of youths who broke the windows and doors of their house.

"As we were preparing to go to bed, we saw a group of people marching towards our house bearing very bright spotlights that blinded us," he said.

Thinking that they were thieves, he raised the alarm, but no help was forthcoming.

What he did not know was that his wife had been marked "wanted" by the lynch mob for allegedly engaging in witchcraft, her diabetic condition notwithstanding.

"We pleaded with them to spare our lives but they could hear none of our pleas," narrated Mr Obiero.

He escaped death narrowly, going out through the kitchen door, after the youths doused the house with petrol and set it on fire. His sick wife died in the inferno.

Her body was later traced to the couple's bathroom where she had apparently gone to seek refuge from the flames.

In neighbouring homes, families of Peris Kemunto, 86, and Milka Nyang'au, 60, were in mourning.

"Why did these people kill my wife? Why did they burn our house if it was my wife they were looking for?" asked the clergyman rhetorically.

Similar questions were raised by the dependants of other victims in other five villages in Kisii Central and Nyamira districts, with few, if any answers, forthcoming.

The six villages were in a sombre mood as police vehicles made numerous trips, some to remove the charred bodies to the mortuary, and others to take charge of the security in the area.

In other homes hit by the operation, relatives were busy putting up temporary shelters. The families maintain that the dead were innocent.

Is rampant

Among the accusations levelled against the suspected witches are using their supernatural powers to kill or maim their victims.

Further, residents accuse the witches of causing their children to perform poorly in school.

However, some residents not only believe that witchcraft is rampant in the area, but also that the perpetrators deserved the punishment meted on them.

One family claimed that they sold their land in Metembe Village for neighbouring Miruka, because they could no longer put up with the behaviour of some of their neighbours, who they believed were out to harm them through sorcery.

A family member, 40, now lives in Nyamira township, while his parents stay in their new home in Miruka.

"My family moved from Metembe to Miruka because we feared that we would be harmed," he told the Nation.

He says that the same fear has driven many people out of the village, and especially the educated youth.

"The youth are the main target of the witches, so they stay in towns so that they do not come into contact with the people who plan to harm them," he adds.

To harm them

This has led to deteriorating economic wellbeing of the area as the productive age group is nowhere to take part in the process.

Those who remain behind, it is claimed, have turned to heavy chang'aa drinking and hardly do anything meaningful for the families.

Area residents have now turned on the suspects with a vengeance, and many have been killed in as many years on suspicion of practising witchcraft.

The residents believe that this is the way to go, to instil fear among the remaining witches, so that they can live in peace.

The local police and Provincial Administration have, in the meantime, warned the residents against taking the law into their own hands.

"As much as we do not support witchcraft, people must also respect human rights," said Kisii Central DC Njoroge Ndirangu.

The lynching

Nyamira OCPD, Lawrence Mwaura Njoroge and Nyamaiya DO, Mwangi Ngunyi also condemned the killings and asked area residents to provide information that would assist security to arrest the perpetrators of the lynching.
Relevant Links

"We are going to do thorough investigations and those found to have taken the law into their own hands will be dealt in accordance with the law," Mr Njoroge said.

Mr Mwaura said that the suspects should not be condemned by the public, but should be handed over to police for prosecution.

Meanwhile, the undulating region in the southern part of Nyanza now echoes the trepidation the residents live as the confusion caused by witches reigns.

They have vowed to wipe out all the suspected witches on their list despite police warnings to the contrary.

On the other hand, the targeted families now hinge their hopes on the Government to protect them from the unrelenting mob.