NAIROBI, Kenya, May 29 – A middle aged woman was on Friday night raped and killed in Jua Kali estate within Nyahururu town and her body dumped along the banks of River Ewaso Nyiro.
Residents woke up to find the woman’s unharmed nine-month old baby lying a few meters away from her body.
According to witnesses, the baby’s cries prompted the search which revealed the woman’s half-naked body.
“We were walking to work at around 7am when we heard a baby crying. We found the body half naked and some of her clothes dumped nearby. The child was some meters away,” noted Mary Muthoni.
Ms Muthoni said that it was then that she informed other residents who called the police.
Nyandarua police chief Jasper Ombati who confirmed the incident said that no arrests had been made so far. He said that security within the town had so far been beefed up to prevent such incidents.
“We have increased patrols within the town so that no such occurrences happen. We have launched investigations into the matter,” he said.
The body of the murder victim woman was moved to the Nyahururu district hospital mortuary.
This incident comes barely a week after another woman was repeatedly gang-raped by four men within the town while her brother was tied some meters away from the scene.
Three suspects have been arrested in connection with the previous incident and are set to appear in court next week.
Meanwhile the Nairobi Women’s Hospital has blamed societal rot and group mentality for the increasing number of gang rape cases in Nairobi and its environs.
The hospital which on Thursday released statistics indicating that the size of the gangs involved in rapes had increased to 20, also said that the government needed to efficiently implement the Sexual Offenses Act.
In an interview with Capital News, the hospital’s Deputy Programmes Manager Alberta Wambua said this would ensure that those found guilty of such offense were held to account thereby reducing impunity levels in the society.
“People are just behaving like animals; they are not actually thinking of what they are doing so they just jump and rape people. Again because of culture, sex has lost meaning to a lot of people and people just do it as a by the way. It’s like it has become most pleasurable when it’s most unusual,” she said.
She also added that the Kenyan society needed to come together and view Gender Based Violence as a societal problem as it also threatened HIV/AIDS prevention measures.
“We need to start looking at it the way everyone looks at HIV/AIDS. We are all in it…it’s not a woman’s issue…it’s not the girl child issue. We are all vulnerable; this is not a fight that you can fight alone. We all need to join hands and battle it out as a nation,” she said.
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