Kenyan police battle slum-dwellers, head found

NAIROBI – Kenyan police used whips and teargas to battle slum-dwellers yesterday in a crackdown on the Mungiki criminal gang blamed for the latest macabre discovery of a severed and skinned head, witnesses said.

“It’s very chaotic. I can hear gunshots now,” Peter Kamande, who helps run a community group in Nairobi’s Mathare shanty town, told Reuters by telephone.The latest violence in the narrow, filth-strewn alleys of Mathare – a Mungiki stronghold – came after police killed at least 22 people there in the early hours of Tuesday chasing members of the gang that is wreaking havoc across central Kenya.Various Mungiki victims have been beheaded in recent weeks, the latest in Mathare on Wednesday.”The head was found skinned to the bone.People say it was a local mechanic,” Kamande said.Scores of police moved into the slum around midday, smashing doors, whipping passers-by, tipping over dozens of drums of illegal alcohol, and handcuffing suspects, a Reuters witness saw.Local women taunted the police from a distance.”You are afraid of Mungiki.That is why you are being killed,” shouted one, prompting police to lob two canisters of teargas into the crowd.Named after the word for “multitude” in the Kikuyu language, Mungiki emerged in the 1990s as a quasi-religious sect.It touts itself as inheriting the mantle of Mau Mau rebels who fought the British colonial authorities before independence in 1963.Claiming thousands of members in central Kenya, the group later turned to large-scale racketeering, particularly in the lucrative minibus trade.About a dozen Mungiki “defectors” have been found tortured and killed, some beheaded, in recent weeks.As well as smashing up illegal alcohol dens, police confiscated hundreds of marijuana cigarettes and some hunting knives during yesterday’s operation.Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said officers had shown “restraint” while flushing out Mungiki, whose wave of killings has terrified many in the east African nation of 32 million.Nampa-ReutersI can hear gunshots now,” Peter Kamande, who helps run a community group in Nairobi’s Mathare shanty town, told Reuters by telephone.The latest violence in the narrow, filth-strewn alleys of Mathare – a Mungiki stronghold – came after police killed at least 22 people there in the early hours of Tuesday chasing members of the gang that is wreaking havoc across central Kenya.Various Mungiki victims have been beheaded in recent weeks, the latest in Mathare on Wednesday.”The head was found skinned to the bone.People say it was a local mechanic,” Kamande said.Scores of police moved into the slum around midday, smashing doors, whipping passers-by, tipping over dozens of drums of illegal alcohol, and handcuffing suspects, a Reuters witness saw.Local women taunted the police from a distance.”You are afraid of Mungiki.That is why you are being killed,” shouted one, prompting police to lob two canisters of teargas into the crowd.Named after the word for “multitude” in the Kikuyu language, Mungiki emerged in the 1990s as a quasi-religious sect.It touts itself as inheriting the mantle of Mau Mau rebels who fought the British colonial authorities before independence in 1963.Claiming thousands of members in central Kenya, the group later turned to large-scale racketeering, particularly in the lucrative minibus trade.About a dozen Mungiki “defectors” have been found tortured and killed, some beheaded, in recent weeks.As well as smashing up illegal alcohol dens, police confiscated hundreds of marijuana cigarettes and some hunting knives during yesterday’s operation.Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said officers had shown “restraint” while flushing out Mungiki, whose wave of killings has terrified many in the east African nation of 32 million.Nampa-Reuters