Migori county residents are living in fear after a series of murders rocked the county since government imposed the special 7pm to 4am curfew to curb spread of Covid 19 in western Kenya.
Residents of Dago Kouma woke up in shock after a body of a naked woman was picked by herders, a third murder case in a span of days.
They said the woman was found naked with only a necklace and bracelet, and it seems like she was murdered elsewhere and body left there.
“We don’t know the woman as villagers, she looked like she was aged slightly above 20 years and was strangled and body dumped the previous night,” Charles Ameso a resident said.
A boy who went to herd cows in the morning at a swamp saw the body and alerted police who came and picked it up.
Ameso said they are shocked that in the same Kakrao area, on Sunday a teacher Kevin Owuor was found dead after he was reported missing last Friday evening.
His family reported the matter at Migori Police Station and carried out their own search before students from Kakrao Technical Training Institute stumbled upon the body of the teacher from a private school in the area.
“The 31-year-old father of one saw off one of his neighbors on Friday evening but failed to return home,” Upper Kakrao assistant chief Wilfred Onyango said.
Onyango said the man may have been killed elsewhere and the body dumped in the thicket, a few metres from his home.
“There was no trace of blood but there were several panga cuts in his head. We suspect the assailants dumped the body in the thicket next to his home for easy identification, ” he said.
On June 25, Migori town residents woke up shocked after a farmhand was found murdered in cold blood at Kimaiga estate.
Caleb Ombura, the Suna Central Location chief said traders in the morning were shocked to see blood and signs of struggle in a maize plantation which led them to a gruesome murder.
Residents said that past curfew hours, police officers often retreat in stations and leave patrol work alone which has made it for marauding gangs to roam in estates.
“From eight at night we are at mercy of gangs, it looks like since curfew came in police who often arrest people in pubs to get bribes left the job as there are no people to extort from. The work has remained for gangs to terrorise us,” Jackson Oyatta, resident said.
He said with strict curfew hours and fear of insecurity, most residents find it harder to walk and report incidents to police on time.
Awendo MP Walter Owino said since the new curfew rules were placed by President Uhuru Kenyatta on June 18 there have been many reported cases of insecurity.
“We blame police for lack of patrols which ends by 8pm when they have ensured the curfew rules are followed, afterwards it is vagabonds who rule towns,” Owino said.
He said reported cases of muggings, house break in and assaults have been on the rise in Migori and called for more police patrols especially in major towns of Migori, Awendo and Rongo.
“It looked like since people are not there, police forgot about patrols as it seems there are no people to extort money,” he said.
Suna East sub-county Kibe Maguta said they have launched investigations over recent spate of insecurity and will increase patrols and called for the public to help police in investigations to catch the culprits.
“We are on high alert and we have already started investigations to unearth what transpired and get suspects behind the attacks and ascertain if there is a gang,” Maguta said.
Uriri OCPD Peter Njoroge said already they have special intelligence gathering over the attacks and work on getting criminals who operate past curfew hours.
In Kakrao, in the outskirts of Migori town months ago a panga wielding gang murdered a guard in cold blood and stole goods from a hardware.
By LTN Reporter
