NAIROBI, Kenya – Paramilitary police fired tear gas Wednesday in a Nairobi slum believed to be a hotbed for an outlawed sect accused of terrorizing Kenyans and leaving behind a string of beheaded corpses, including five this week.
The sect, called the Mungiki, was inspired by the 1950s Mau Mau uprising against British rule and has become linked to murder, political violence and extortion.
Police found a beheaded corpse overnight in the Mathare slum, police said. A police official, Gideon Amalla, said authorities fatally shot two suspects overnight.
Mungiki is suspected in the deaths of at least 19 people in the past three months, including 11 found mutilated or beheaded since May. Besides the violence in Nairobi, there have also been beheadings in Muranga, 40 miles north of the capital, and other villages outside the city, police said.
The bloodshed has raised fears that Mungiki members are out to disrupt the elections in December, when President Mwai Kibaki will seek a second term. Authorities allege the group has circulated leaflets calling on Kenyan youth to join and prepare for an uprising against the government.
Mungiki claims to have thousands of adherents, all drawn from the Kikuyu, Kenya’s largest tribe. The group’s name means “multitude” in the Kikuyu language.
Members traditionally wear dreadlocks, inspired by the Mau Mau who wore them as a symbol of anti-colonialism and their determination not to conform to Western norms. In recent years, however, many Mungiki have shaved their heads, believing dreadlocks are too conspicuous.
Sect members pray facing Mount Kenya, which the Kikuyu believe to be the home of their supreme deity. The group also encourages female genital mutilation and using tobacco snuff.
Mungiki was outlawed in 2002 after at least 20 people were killed in fighting between it and another gang called the Taliban, whose members come from the Luo tribe of western Kenya.
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