When Margaret Mbithe sent her 14-year-old Kennedy Maluni to the shop at around 8.30pm on August 23, little did she know it would be the last time she saw her son alive.
The single mother of four started getting worried when her last born had not returned from the shop by 10pm.
They live in Mwamlai area in Jomvu subcounty in Mombasa.
“I gathered my neighbours and we started looking for him everywhere,” she narrated to the Star.
By 2am the search was still unsuccessful and on advice from the neighbours and her sister, who had come from another village to join the search, they sought divine intervention.
“The next morning, I went to the village elder to report the matter and he advised me to first report it at the police station,” Mbithe said on Saturday.
The report was booked at the Jomvu police station under OB 07/24/08/2023 at around 7.10am.
The police told her a body has been discovered in a ditch somewhere in Mwamlai and that she should check it out.
“When I went there, I found a lot of people, including the police, milling around. When I peeped to have a look, my heart skipped and the legs gave way. It was my son,” Mbithe recalls.
Juma Lubambo, the director of Vision of Hope Education Centre in Mwamlai, described the 14-year-old Maluni as a bright student who carried the school’s hope of scoring over 350 marks in this year’s KCPE exam.
Lubambo said Maluni’s body was found about 500 metres from the school, on the very path he usually took when walking to the Alternative Provider of Basic Education and Training institution.
The school director said Maluni had deep machete cuts on the head, neck, hands and abdomen.
“We had reports that this was done by a group of young boys who we had not known until about three days ago, when we got wind that three of the attackers had been arrested and they named three of their colleagues, who are still at large,” Lubambo said.
According to the reports they gathered, Maluni was first attacked by three boys almost his age, who beat him up, before three others appeared with machetes and slashed him.
“Then one of the first three went back to where the body had been ditched to see whether it was still there or the boy had gone. He found the body had started going cold and was lifeless. He panicked and ran away, not returning home,” Lubambo said.
They got information from a police officer involved in the case.
Jomvu police boss Lydia Wanjiru said the Jomvu Director of Criminal Investigations is handling the investigations.
Lubambo said the three suspects are still at large and have gone missing since the incident took place.
They fear one of them, who recently acquired a passport, might flee the country.
“That is our greatest fear. We know the boys mentioned because we live with them and we have seen them grow.
“We have had these incidences where these young boys, who smoke bhang from as young an age as nine years, get away with crime by being flown to the Middle East where their parents secure them these odd jobs,” Lubambo said.
He said in Mamlai, young people, aged between 13 and 24, abuse drugs with reckless abandon with security agents doing little to stop it.
“Some walk in groups of about five to seven, all of them smoking bhang openly. They then start waylaying people from as early as 6.30pm or early in the morning around 5am, targeting those going to Kongowea market to fetch stock for their kiosks,” Lubambo said.
Lubambo said Maluni was one of the bright needy students being sponsored by the school.
“He was not paying any school fees because we had decided to lighten that burden from his mother. He was bright and we expected at least 350 marks from him in this year’s KCPE,” Lubambo said.
He said they had even started looking for well-wishers to pay for his secondary school education.
“I don’t know how the mother will handle this tragedy and how she will transport the body to Makueni for burial. She struggles a lot,” Lubambo said.
Mbithe said a post-mortem was supposed to be conducted on Friday but was pushed to Monday.
“But we don’t know how we will pay for it. We also have to plan for the funeral but we don’t know where to start. We have nothing,” Mbithe said seeking help from well-wisher.
“I ask that justice for my son be found,” she said.
Elizabeth Musembi, a Nyumba Kumi ambassador in neighbouring Chamunyu village, said insecurity is becoming rampant, especially in Mwamlai.
She however lamented that in most of the cases, reported victims of insecurity do not get justice.
“The cases are never brought to conclusion. After you report, you are told investigations are launched and that will be the song until you get tired of following up,” Musembi said.
Her son is Maluni’s friend and classmate.
