Fear Stalks Nairobi Slum in Ugly Twist to Kenya Vote Impasse
- Residents blame Mungiki gang for post-election attacks
- Police deny gangs being deployed to quash opposition dissent
Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga leaves from the Mathare district of Nairobi on Aug. 13, after speaking to the family of a young girl killed in election-related violence.
Photographer: CARL DE SOUZA/AFP via Getty ImagesIn a Nairobi slum named Lucky Summer, residents tell of being terrorized by men with dreadlocks wearing official Kenyan paramilitary uniforms who stalk the streets at night carrying machetes, clubs and guns.
The troublemakers belong to the Mungiki, a criminal gang that played a key role in ethnic fighting that followed a contested 2007 vote and claimed at least 1,100 lives, according to more than a dozen people interviewed in the hodgepodge of dilapidated apartments and shanties in the northeast of the city. The predominantly ethnic Kikuyu group’s attacks on the opposition stronghold mark an ominous turn of events after last week’s disputed elections.