Vigilante Group Terror in Kisii Leads To Brutal Killings Of Suspects

Under inexplicable circumstances, a vigilante group in Kisii central known as Sungu Sungu has been brutally carrying out executions of suspected gangsters and criminals in a manner that has left villagers terrified and at a loss on what to do since the provincial administration is sitting back and doing nothing.

The police are not even keen to investigate and make arrests following the murders of the suspected thieves, which is carried out late in the night by a group of between fifty to seventy youths armed with crude weapons.

A widow was shown on television recently narrating how the group suspected her husband of being a criminal only to write a letter to him to the effect that they were coming for his head. The matter came to pass as they subsequently attacked and chopped off his head.

The notorious group also has powers to deny relatives of their victims the chance to bury them in their homes and usually instructs them to dispose of the bodies at public cemeteries in Kisii town.

Not only does the group kill, they also burn and loot their victim's property and usually write letters to potential victims accusing them of their crimes before carrying out the 'judgment' which is usually death by lynching late into the night.

Surprisingly, chiefs and their assistants and even the police don’t bother to interfere with most locals assuming that the government approves of what the vigilante group is doing though some of its victims' family members have said many of the people killed have been innocent.

The source of information that the terror group relies on is not known and villagers suspect that it could be the provincial administrators who are giving these names and in effect signing death warrants of innocent villagers.

Apparently, the politicians have also chosen to ignore the issue in spite of numerous calls to them from the villagers to intervene and end these senseless killings, which are carried out in the most brutal manner.

It is becoming clear that the government approves of what the Sungu Sungu is doing and actually believe that they are effectively combating runaway crime in Kisii by executing dangerous thieves. However it seems that they there are also innocent people who are dying as a result of wrong information, which is never verified let alone authenticated prior to execution.

Kenya has a history of vigilante groups, which have over stepped their powers and committed atrocities among their own people, but nothing like Sungu Sungu has ever been seen in the country before. They make the dreaded Mungiki sect look like a bunch of kindergarten kids.

It is now up to the government to step in and end this madness once and for all by arresting and prosecuting these youths who have become a law unto themselves as they go about carrying out summary executions with impunity.


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