‘Witchdoctor’ buried alive over son’s death

By KENAN MIRUKA

Residents of Kenyenya District are still in shock, following the lynching of an alleged witchdoctor on suspicion of bewitching his son.

The middle-aged man was accosted at a local market, shortly after leaving a police station to report concerns about threats to his life. He was roughed up and literally dragged to his homestead, where he was clobbered senseless by the angry mob then set ablaze.

Villagers at Etono Market suspected the deceased, identified as Charles Ngoge, 50, to have bewitched his son, 30-year-old Job Nyabuto, who succumbed to a short illness at a local hospital last Friday.

On Saturday morning, when friends and relatives received news of the death of Job, who had been admitted to Gucha Level Four Hospital, chaos erupted. After hunting his father down in vain, they deemed it fit to vent their anger by torching the alleged witchdoctor’s house in the outskirts of Etono Market.

On Sunday afternoon, relatives on their way to mourn the deceased came across the alleged witchdoctor enjoying a bottle of soda on a shop’s veranda at Mogonga Market. They forced him to board a boda boda and head home.

Upon arrival, they forced him into his grass-thatched house and set it a blaze as he protested his innocence. When it became apparent that the burly man was not dying ‘quickly’, a section of the mob dug a shallow grave and buried the badly injured man alive.

Police officers led by Gucha OCPD Richard Ng’etich arrived too late. They exhumed the body and had it moved to the Nyamache District Hospital mortuary.

Police said they had launched a man-hunt for six people suspected to have been involved in the lynching.

Sources said the deceased’s son had been diagnosed with high blood pressure. The lynched man is a well-known herbalist in his village and a polygamist. His first wife died a few years ago under what villagers describe as ‘mysterious circumstances’.

Villagers swore never to accept Charles’s body for burial, and asked police to bury his remains at a public cemetery. However, after the intervention of elders, it was agreed that the alleged witchdoctor’s body be buried, albeit unceremoniously, in a not-so-decent send-off.

And true to their word, close relatives prepared a coffin from offcuts and collected the body from the mortuary. The coffin was closed, so no viewing was allowed, and the hasty burial was conducted the same day, contrary to local traditions for a man his age.

The OCPD expressed concern over the high rate of lynching of suspected criminals in the area.

“We should shun the temptation to take the law into our hands when we suspect people of committing crime. Report to the police for action,” said Ng’etich.

He attributed the killings to family rows that emanate from land disputes.