This archive report was first published on 15 August 2021.
On Sunday, August 8, a tragic incident occurred in Kitengela, where four young men attending a birthday party were killed by a mob over suspicion of being livestock thieves.
The victims, Fred Mureithi, 30, and his brother Victor Mwangi, 25, along with their friends Mike George, 29, and Nicholas Musa, 28, had gathered to celebrate Mwangi's birthday.
A witness revealed that the four men pleaded with the villagers to spare their lives, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.
A witness narrated, "They went where the 4 were sitting and attacked them by using rungus and using spears until they died. They did not resist and even issued the villagers with contacts they would use to contact for easy identification. The villagers, however, heard none of it."
Their motorbikes and personal documents were also torched. Another witness stated that the four men were killed by people known to them, and a civilian gun owner had to shoot in the air to disperse the irate crowd.
Police officers arrived at 11pm to collect the bodies, but the culprits had already left. The bodies were taken to the city mortuary and marked as unknown.
The two brothers lived in a palatial home left to them by their mother Lucy Wanjiru, who currently lives in the United Kingdom. Wanjiru was so inconsolable when she heard of the demise of her only two children that she had to be hospitalized.
