Fear intensifies as 'Jeshi Jinga' gang terrorises Butere residents

Linnet Nangoye whose husband was killed by thugs at Mureko village in Butere Constituency. [Benjamin Sakwa, Standard]

They are a daring gang that sends potential victims messages about their planned attacks before they terrorise them and steal their valuables, cattle, and kill those who resist.

The emergence of the Jeshi Jinga gang in Butere constituency has sent shivers to villagers and has forced some of them even to seek refuge in police stations at night.

For the last two months, several villages in Butere constituency have not known peace as the frequency of the threatening texts increases and insecurity worsens.

The threatening messages have been the same: ‘This time utashangaa,tunakukujia ni sisi Jeshi Jinga’(This time you will be shocked, we are coming for you, we are Jeshi Jinga gang).

The gang with its majority members coming from Emulambo village which means dead body’ in the local dialect has already killed two people in their latest retaliatory revenge last week on Sunday.

This is after residents lynched two of their suspected members over claims of engaging in cattle theft.

According to locals, those killed were involved in the war against crime in the area after forming a night vigilante group.

The organized gang of more than 150 members mostly youth between the ages of 19 to 40 has been terrorizing the residents in the villages of Emureko, Emulambo, Evukolwe, Shikulusi, and Shinamwinyule in the Butere constituency.

In these villages, half of the locals have fled their homes, some have taken refuge at Butere Police Station, and cattle are nowhere to be seen as owners have sold them while the gangs have stolen others.

The latest victim to receive the threatening message on Sunday last week via his phone was Fredrick Nangoye, a village elder of Mureko village, before he was attacked and killed by a machete-wielding on Sunday night.

In the Luhya community as per traditions, where people converge at the bereaved families to offer condolences, in Butere locals are so frightened that they cannot visit the families as per customary.

Linet Nangoye, sits pensively outside her house in Mureko village, mourning the death of her husband Fredrick Nangoye, 56, who was killed by the alleged gang on Sunday night.

The pain of loss, coupled with the circumstances in which Nangoye was killed, continues to bring more grief, fear, tears, and cries for justice for Linet.

“My late husband showed me the text message and we knew it was a mere threat by those unhappy with a vigilante group my husband and his brother had formed to protect locals at night against the night criminals stealing cattle and killing people,” said Linet.

However, Linet says as fate could have it, at around 10 pm they heard a noise emanating outside and when Nangoye stepped out of his house he realized that his brother was under attack and he decided to help little did he know he was meeting his killers.

“The gang had disconnected power and they were using torches. I heard my husband screaming when I went where he was wailing from and was shocked to find my husband lying down helplessly in a pool of blood and he had deep cuts at the back of his head and back. I remember his last words that today these people have defeated me and a few minutes later he died,” said Linet.

A few metres from Nangoye’s home another family is mourning the death of 60-year-old Thomas Eshapaya who was killed on Sunday night.

Jane Auma, the wife of Eshapaya, a boda boda rider, now the deceased, said their home was attacked at around 10 pm by people armed with machetes who pounced on her husband a few moments after he arrived home.

Auma said the assailants appeared satisfied after they had killed her husband in cold blood. "They said we had finished the task and that their second assignment was to kill his brother, a village elder."

“After my husband died one of the assailants said the remaining task was to finish my brother-in-law and they left little did we know that my in-law was on his way to help his brother,” said Auma.

Billy Shapaya, the son of the deceased Thomas Shapaya says the gang struck before the vigilante group could meet.

“I was outside with my father and my uncle, my father left after giving us orders on how we should operate as a vigilante group because by then we had not met as the entire group of 20 people, however, a few minutes after he left, we heard the noise of altercation and later the voice of my father screaming,” said Billy.

The Standard crew had a difficult time convincing locals for an interview and it took us almost two hours to have the locals accept an interview, no one was willing to speak for fear of being attacked, adding that the gang attacks anyone who seemed to interfere with their operations.

Isaac Shapaya, a neighbor, says the gang strikes like a bee and they take a maximum of five minutes and they are done with their work.

“This is a gang of youthful men under the influence of drugs and the worrying thing with the gang is that they conduct their operations within five minutes, kill, injure, and steal cattle and they move very first,” said Shapaya.

As The Standard crew traverses the five affected villages, half of the population in each village had run away, homes deserted and without cattle.

According to Shapaya the group attacks and kills anyone associating with security apparatus or coming in their way.

“No one in Butere is keeping cattle because they are the hotcake for the gang, people have decided to sell their cattle and many have relocated to their relatives,” says Shapaya.

According to the locals, Francis Angatia, Geoffrey Awinja, Jukius Aseka and Plasio Oluta from the affected villages have sold their cattle and since relocated to unknown areas after some of their cattle were stolen and houses torched by the armed gang.

Butere Sub-County Police Commander Julius Kiptoo said police have already arrested eight suspects including the ring leader and they are pursuing more than 15 suspects.

“We are hunting for more than 15 suspects, and three main suspects who take orders from Anganya the problem we are facing is that the suspects are using alias names the majority of them have no identification card and their education did not go beyond standard five,” said Kiptoo.

Kiptoo downplayed claims of an organized gang by the name ‘Jeshi Jinga’ stating that the criminal gang is a collection of unemployed and uneducated youths who are out to steal cattle.