- The suspect who is locked up at Tala police station is alleged to have sold the land and squandered the money.
- The two had been living as husband and wife for 31 years.
Image: GEORGE OWITI
A man has been arrested for allegedly hacking his wife with a panga at Muumoni village in Matungulu, Machakos.
Jackson Musyoka injured Florence Mwikali, 51, on Wednesday for refusing to sign a sale agreement for the only family land.
The two had been living as husband and wife for 31 years.
Mwikali is fighting for her life at the Machakos Level 5 Hospital after being transferred from the Kangundo Level 4 Hospital on Thursday.
The suspect, who is locked up at Tala police station, is alleged to have sold the land and squandered the money.
Mwikali said Musyoka violently attacked and injured her after she refused to sign the land sale agreements.
She said he had been pestering her to sign the documents.
“My husband attacked me while I was on the family land. He was armed with a panga, bow and arrows. He hurt me while I helplessly cried for help, to no avail.
"When I asked him what was wrong, he said he had come to kill me for refusing to sign the sale agreement,” Mwikali said.
The victim who spoke to the press from her hospital bed on Thursday said her husband first fired an arrow.
She said the arrow missed both her farmhand and self before he pounced on her with a panga.
“He fired an arrow at us, the next thing I felt were pains from cut wounds. He hacked me with a panga and I lost consciousness,” Mwikali said.
She said they had been married since 1992 and have been blessed with three children aged 33, 30 and 22.
Mwikali said she was always battered by the husband and had on several occasions sought refuge at her parents’ home.
She said it had dawned on her that her own husband wanted her dead.
“He has beaten me countlessly but I stayed in marriage because of the love for my children,” Mwikali said.
Her son Peter Kyalo said it is sad to see her mother bedridden, yet she was okay and working on the land before the attack.
He said his mother was harvesting beans.
Kyalo said he had gone to pick something at a nearby shop when all over sudden he heard screams.
He said on coming back, he found his mother lying helplessly on the ground.
Kyalo said early this year they realised that their father had sold the land for Sh250,000 and squandered the money.
A neighbour Eunice Mueni said she responded to the victim’s screams only to find her whining in a pool of blood.
She said the husband had fled the scene.
The woman’s daughter Susan Mbula said she rushed to Machakos from Nairobi after she got information of their mother’s attack.
“What hurts most is that our mother has been harmed by our father, over family land,” Mbula said.
Fridah Musyoki, the nurse who received the victim at Kangundo Level 4 Hospital said she was admitted with deep cut wounds in the face.
She said they stabilised her before she was transferred to Machakos Level 5 Hospital.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)