A two-year-old boy who went missing in Kutus on Sunday has been found dead in a rice farm in Mwea, Kirinyaga county.
Jairus Munene went missing from a church compound in Kutus where he and his mother had attended a Sunday service.
Johnson Muthee, a friend to the boy's parents, said Munene had just been given lunch by his mother after which he started roaming in the church compound before mysteriously vanishing.
His body was found on Wednesday dumped in a canal leading to the rice farms.
Muthee who was in the boy’s search team, said the body was found by school-going children who raised alarm.
“We are in shock over Munene’s death. We have spent the last three days searching for him hoping to find him alive only to find his body. This innocent boy had done no mistake,” Muthee said.
He said the boy might have been killed elsewhere and his body dumped in the rice farm as the deceased’s stomach was not bloated and his clothes were dry.
"This seems to us like a cold-blood murder executed for unknown reasons. There is visible evidence to show that the child didn't accidentally fall into the canal. We want this case investigated so that justice can be served."
Resident Antony Maina said when farmers heard of the missing boy, they closed the water canal at the entry point to block the inflow of water to help the body to float, just in case he was dumped there.
"It has always been the norm, to lock the canal from the entry point, whenever a person from this area goes missing. In this case, Munene's body was not discovered floating at the canal but was dumped at it's bank," he said.
Maina urged police to erect roadblocks on all roads leading to the farms as this is not the first crime to be reported in there.
"Our children have frequently reported unknown individuals who chase after them while on their way to school. We want the police to not take that information lightly but to follow up on the matter. We now fear for the lives of our children," he said.
The residents called on the investigative agencies to probe the cause of death and bring the culprits to book.
They urged the government to beef up security in the area by increasing the number of police patrols.
Mwea East police boss Daniel Kitavi said investigations have commenced. He said a post-mortem will be carried out to ascertain the cause of Munene's death.
Munene's body was recovered a day after another body of a male adult was found put in a sack and dumped along the banks of Nyamindi river.
Residents said they could not identify the man and only suspected that he was murdered elsewhere and dumped there.
The rice farms, their feeder rivers and their other supportive infrastructures have in the recent past been turned into a spot for dumping bodies.
This year alone, more than seven bodies have been retrieved from the farms and the nearby rivers.
One of the incidents being the recovery of the body of Bashir Mohamed, a prominent business man who was mysteriously murdered in May and his body dumped in River Nyamindi.
-Edited by SKanyara
