53 Mungiki Suspects Arrested Over Nairobi Terror

The East African Standard (Nairobi)/January 22, 2003
By Tom Odula

Nairobi -- Police have arrested 53 suspected members of the outlawed Mungiki sect in connection with Monday evening's attack in Nairobi's city centre.

Six people, including a police officer, were injured in the attack targetting new matatu clerks on Dandora's route 42.

Police also impounded the Matatu minibus registration number KAJ 703 M which is alleged to have ferried the sect members to the Kenya National Archives stage before the attack.

Nairobi police boss Stephen Kimenchu said the assailants were arrested from their hideouts in Dandora and Kariobangi where they fled to after the incident.

Sect members who had been managing operations at the terminus were forced to leave after the Government launched a crack down on them recently.

Kimenchu said the new managers did not inform police as required about the change of guard so that security could be provided for an anticipated retaliation act by the outlawed group.

He said that among those arrested is the owner of the vehicle.

Mungiki chairman Maina Njenga and national co-ordinator Ndura Waruinge are still in hiding.

The Government ordered the crack down on Mungiki early this month after 23 people were killed by sect members in Nakuru and Nyeri.

An unknown number of the Mungiki adherents took over sections of the Nairobi's city centre on Monday when they attacked civilians along Accra Road.

Witnesses said the attackers had concealed their weapons in their heavy jackets and queued like other commuters waiting in line to board the matatu.