This archive report was first published on 6 January 2020.
January 6, 2020
The Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church in Kilifi County has launched an aggressive evangelistic campaign aimed at stopping the arbitrary killing of elderly persons suspected of practising witchcraft in Ganze Constituency.
According to Pastor Ben Maruko, who heads the SDA Church in the Coastal Region, the campaign was held over the Christmas and New Year festive period to sensitize locals against the vice through the preaching of God’s Word.
During the two-week door-to-door campaign, Pastor Maruko said the church noticed that most people, especially the youth, were not attending religious places of worship such as churches and mosques to be spiritually nourished.
He attributed the increase in cases of schoolgoing children taking to the use of khat (mogokaa) and alcohol to the lack of spiritual guidance.
Police say at least 100 elderly persons in the constituency have been killed in cold blood over the past two years.
However, investigations have revealed that the driving force of such killings is not witchcraft but family feuds arising from the lust to inherit land and property.
Ganze Member of Parliament Teddy Mwambire and some members of the community opened the Kaya Godhoma Rescue Centre in Mrima wa Ndege area two years ago where hundreds of elderly persons have found refuge after escaping from possible annihilation in the villages.
