A 10-year-old boy is admitted to hospital in serious but stable condition after deciding to circumcise himself in Naivasha.
During the bizarre incident in the Ndabibi area, the class three pupil used a kitchen knife to conduct the ritual leading to massive bleeding before he was rescued and taken to hospital.
The boy who is on holiday decided to circumcise himself as was the case with tens of other boys in the village located 40 kilometres from Naivasha town.
According to the mother Lucy Wanja, she noticed something was amiss as the boy was not leaving the bedroom and was walking painfully.
On checking closer, she realized that his pants were soaked in blood and decided to enquire further only to realize that he had circumcised himself.
“One of the neighbours' sons was circumcised a couple of weeks back and I never realized that my son was mature enough to know what was going on,” she said on Wednesday.
While calling for help, the single mother said that she could barely feed other members of the family, adding that the minor needed specialized treatment.
The incident came a couple of days after a newly circumcised boy was tortured for close to one week by a group of youths in Mai Mahiu before he was rescued by police.
Three suspects including the stepmother have been arrested and are being held by police awaiting to be charged in court with attempted murder.
This came as the Patron Kikuyu Council of Elders Kikuyu Council of Elders Captain Kung’u Muigai called on the church to keep off initiation ceremonies.
Through the ‘Kiama Kia Maa’, he said that the church should stick to religious matters while cultural issues like initiation should be conducted by elders.
“You have never seen the elders baptizing someone as it’s the responsibility of the church and circumcision of boys should be left to the elders,” he said.
Muigai blamed the rise in cases of bullying of newly baptized boys to the use of churches and other unqualified youths in the initiation process.
“As Kikuyu elders, we have circumcised over 10,000 boys in the last couple of weeks and counselled them on morals and the community's cultural beliefs and practices,” he said.
