• Amina Bakari,30, was attacked using a panga as she closed her shop in the village at around 11 pm.
• Her body was discovered by neighbours who rushed her to the Mbwajumwali dispensary close by where she was pronounced dead.
Image: CHETI PRAXIDES
A Kenya Red Cross volunteer was on Monday evening hacked to death by unknown assailants in Mbwajumwali village, Lamu East.
Amina Bakari,30, was attacked using a panga as she closed her shop in the village at around 11 pm.
She was a peer educator working with the Red Cross.
While confirming the attack on Tuesday morning, Lamu County Commissioner Joseph Kanyiri said investigations had already been launched to arrest the killers and establish the motive of the gruesome murder.
“It’s too early to comment on the motive of the killing and that’s why we are already investigating. All we know is that she was attacked by unknown people as she closed her shop,” said Kanyiri.
Her body was discovered by neighbours who rushed her to the Mbwajumwali dispensary close by where she was pronounced dead.
Kenya Red Cross Society Lamu coordinator Kauthar Alwy said the organisation was saddened by the brutal killing of one of their own.
“When we found her, part of her skull was crushed and her brains were splattered in a mixture of blood on the ground. You could see deep inside her skull. We knew she was probably dead already but we rushed her to the dispensary and they said she had long died. It was a painful death.Mukhtar Ali.
“We are shocked by the incident. Amina has been very active in many of our functions as a peer educator. She was also a peace ambassador in Mbwajumwali. It's such an unfortunate incident and we hope the police can get to the bottom of this and apprehend all those involved,” Alwy said.
Elders, however, suspect she was killed by one of the many marauding drug gangs in the region.
The late will be interred in a cemetery in her village of Mbwajumwali.
Lamu East is worst affected in terms of drug use and peddling while Mbwajumwali village is especially renowned and notorious for drug dens and related criminal activities.
Khaldun Vae, an elder in Lamu East said majority if not all similar attacks and deaths in the region are directly linked to drugs.
Elders have numerously accused security officers of laxity in the war on drugs in the region.
So bad is the situation that many villages in Lamu East are secretly controlled by drug gangs who call the shots.
These gangs are well known to the police and locals and also feared in the same breath.
“The police know these people and so do the locals. However, we squarely blame the police for being too lenient. They must take up this matter seriously before drugs take over Lamu. As elders, we have offered our own suggestions on how to go about it but we are never taken seriously,” Vae said.