Residents of Likoni and Kisauni in Mombasa county are living in great fear following increased cases of criminal gangs, allegedly using hospital needles and syringes to attack people.
According to HAKI Africa human rights group, the youths were using the needles to scare their victims before robbing them of valuables. The organisation has urged residents to embrace community policing so as to identify the gang members.
One resident, Said Abas, 22, who was attacked on Sunday at Kiteje area is nursing injuries in hospital.
“This new wave of criminal attacks is scary,” said Haki Africa executive director Hussein Khalid.
Community members are now accusing police of laxity and taken the law into their hands to kill suspected gang members.
“Incidents of people being killed by the public are on the rise and this should stop. Police should be held responsible for these cases because they are supposed to protect the public,” said Khalid.
Khalid asked County Police commander Johnstone Ipara to restore order in the area especially during Ramadhan period when Muslim faithful go to mosques for prayers at night.
“We are demanding that police heighten security during this month of Ramadhan,” he said. The claims emerged just days after a fourth year student at the Technical University of Mombasa was killed by a machete-wielding gang in Kisauni.
Elsewhere, after the bizarre murder of a seven-year-old boy who was killed in his family’s kitchen on Sunday evening in Matungu Kakamega, residents have now linked the inhumane killings to rituals and human sacrifice.
Malik Moi was stabbed on the neck and his stomach slit open while his guardians had gone for Ramadan prayers.
The innocent Class One pupil was found writhing in pain and later succumbed to the injuries at the Kakamega County General Hospital while undergoing treatment.
“We had gone to the mosque for Magharib prayers when the attackers killed the boy and went away leaving the knife at the scene,” said Mr Juma Makokha, the grandfather.
The defenceless minor did not get a chance to raise alarm and no one in their family noticed his fight against the attacker.
Residents are now demanding that police extend the scope of investigations to establish whether the killings are connected to ritual and human sacrifice.
They claim most of the killings bore common traits where no theft is committed and the scene is left with no blood.
“We were alerted by a distress call from his brother and when we arrived we found the boy’s bowels slit open. He also had a deep cut on the jugular although the crime scene had few visible dots of blood,” Saleh Kweyu, the boy’s grandfather told journalists yesterday.
Kakamega County Commissioner Adulrazak Jaldesa urged residents to avoid speculation over the killing until investigations are completed.