wave
David Gough in Nairobi
Armed vigilante groups are springing up throughout the Kenyan capital in response to a rising crime rate that has made the once peaceful city one of the most dangerous in Africa.
Community leaders say that chronic unemployment, a corrupt and ineffective police force, increases in food prices and rising levels of drug abuse are forcing communities to take the law into their own hands.
“Crime rates are totally out of control in Nairobi,” says Joshua Kariuki, a businessman living and working on the Uthiru housing estate. “Last year we decided that enough was enough, that we could not rely on the police, and formed our own security team.”
Since the vigilantes began patrolling the estate at night there has been a dramatic reduction in burglaries, say residents.
Kariuki insists that the vigilantes are disciplined and do not administer their own justice, but admits that local frustration with crime has occasionally got out of control.
Last month his vigilantes caught two thieves preparing to break into a local businessman’s house.
“We didn’t have a vehicle to take them to the police station and there were no police around so we tied them to a tree until morning. Unfortunately, an angry mob gathered and stoned the men to death.”
“Of course I regret that incident, but the message soon spread that this was not a good place for criminals.”
Peter Njoya, a local shopkeeper, agrees that the murders were unfortunate, but maintains that the vigilantes have dramatically reduced crime. “I used to have to sleep in my shop at night – now I sleep peacefully at home.”
At the bottom of a steep hill that runs at the end of the estate, Robert Mathai slings a bow and a quiver full of metal-tipped arrows over his shoulder, lights a cigarette and prepares to move out on his unpaid night patrol.
Wearing a tattered jumper and a look of determination, Mathai says he believes unemployment is the main cause of the rising crime rate.
“Life for unemployed people such as myself is very hard nowadays. Prices get higher and money more and more difficult to find.”
In the last few months the price of corn flour, the staple diet of most Kenyans, has increased by more than 50%, making life even more precarious for the millions of people caught in the poverty trap.
In the aptly named Sodom area of the Kangemi slum, John Mbugua, a bar owner, says: “The average income in Nairobi is 4 000 shillings (about R340) a month, but a family of four will need at least 8 000 shillings to live. It’s not very surprising that there is so much crime in Sodom.”
As a community leader, Mbugua set up a vigilante group in Sodom last year. He says the police are corrupt and ineffective and cannot be relied on. Some 40 000 people live in Kangemi but only two policemen patrol the slum.
“Ten thousand shillings is usually enough of a bribe to avoid arrest, even if the crime is serious,” he says. “We try to stop people from applying their own justice, but people do not trust the police. Two nights ago a thief was tied to a post and burned to death.”
Mbugua remembers arresting a man last year who had tried to rape one of his neighbours. “I took the rapist to the police station but in a few days he was back in Sodom. I don’t think I’ll be taking the next rapist I catch to the police. No, I think I’ll be taking him to the mortuary.”