Kenyan police faced protests on Wednesday after killing 22 people in a slum believed to be a stronghold of the Mungiki gang, branded ”agents of the devil” by a government minister.
”The government has bungled badly with these extrajudicial killings. You cannot just go into an orgy of wanton slaughter without verification of who you are killing,” opposition leader Raila Odinga told Reuters after the violence in Mathare slum.
Reacting to the killing of two policemen in Mathare on Monday, police raided the slum overnight on Tuesday and shot dead at least 22 people, locals say.
Police spokesperson Eric Kiraithe said officers had shown ”restraint” while flushing out known members of the group, which runs extortion rings in Kenya but seeks to portray itself as a defender of the poor and landless.
Named after the word for ”multitude” in their Kikuyu tribal language, Mungiki emerged in the 1990s as a quasi-religious sect. It claims thousands of members in central Kenya and has turned to large-scale racketeering, particularly in the lucrative minibus taxi business.
Media quoted a statement from the ”Mungiki Defence Force” that said only one of the Mathare dead was a gang member and warned authorities to back off or face ”dire consequences”.
Mathare residents said the police operation, which met armed resistance, took down some of the wrong people.
”I have no doubt some of those killed were innocent,” Peter Kamande, of the Mathare Community Resource Centre, told Reuters. Another body was found on Wednesday, he said, that would take the confirmed death toll to 23.
‘Agents of the devil’
”Police were beating anyone they came across. It was terror like I have never seen before,” resident Joseph Njoroge told local media of the chaotic scenes after dark in the narrow, filth-strewn alleys of the Nairobi informal settlement.
Police were keeping a close watch on Mathare from a nearby hilltop on Wednesday and were also patrolling villages and towns in central Kenya where Mungiki is active.
”The last time I saw this was after the coup [in 1982],” said a resident in Murang’a district, where officers toting semi-automatic rifles strode down dirt roads.
”People have to identify themselves and say what is your purpose in the village. If you don’t have an ID, they throw you in the car.” Suspected Mungiki members shot dead another four people in Murang’a on Tuesday.
Many fear the violence is a taste of worse to come in an election year. The East African country has a tradition of tribal and criminal violence flaring up before major votes.
Odinga, who is running for president in the poll expected in December, called for the resignation of Internal Security Minister John Michuki.
”How many more innocents have to die?” he said. The root causes of the youths’ militancy — unemployment, poverty and landlessness — were not being tackled, he added.
Faced with headlines reading ”Bloodbath” and ”Massacre,” a government spokesperson said the tough response was the only way to deal with Mungiki.
”These are not people with any political, social or religious agenda,” Information Minister Mutahi Kagwe said.
”They are agents of the devil.” – Reuters