[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. |