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| Africa Horn |
| Gruesome battles rage in Kenyan town |
| 2009-04-22 |
| [Mail and Globe] Vigilantes in a central Kenyan town took up arms against a violent gang, sparking fierce battles in which at least 29 people were stoned and hacked to death, police and medics said on Tuesday. The clashes started late on Monday when residents organised in small groups armed with crude weapons decided to fight back against the Mungiki, a violent mafia-like extortionist group infamous for beheading and skinning its victims. "We have so far received 29 bodies. Most of them their have their arms chopped off," said Dr David Ndegwa, at the hospital in Karatina, the epicentre of the clashes north of Nairobi. "We are not able to tell who is Mungiki and who is not," national police spokesperson Eric Kiraithe told AFP. "It's a very bad scene." Karatina woke up to scenes of carnage and destruction, with bodies strewn across the streets in pools of blood and corrugated iron shacks demolished or torched by the fighting. Police arrived in the town on Tuesday and combed through outlying tea plantations for suspects and discarded weapons. "At night, the groups of locals started attacking some of the youths they suspected to be Mungiki members and slashed some of them to death," Kiraithe said. Police sources said at least three people were wounded and 48 arrested. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #6 Usually everyone knows who the gang bangers are in the bad neighborhoods. Perhaps the national police's inability to distinguish violent mobster from ordinary civilian is what caused the outbreak of vigilantism in the first place? |
| Posted by: gromky 2009-04-22 07:55 |
| #5 The Mau Mau movement is not dead, they are just sending emissaries abroad to become leaders and presidents. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-04-22 07:48 |
| #4 I wonder how many of those killed for being Mungiki actually were? This is a part of the world that still kills witches, after all. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-04-22 07:26 |
| #3 They have been very adamant about this for quite a while. What about the political prisoners? Kenya? North Korea? ferris? Kenya WAS stable. |
| Posted by: newc 2009-04-22 03:42 |
| #2 Hey, at least in Kenya people understand that they must fight oppression. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-04-22 03:19 |
| #1 Thanks obama. |
| Posted by: newc 2009-04-22 02:57 |