Man lynched for raping, killing schoolgirl

Mt Elgon; Kenya: A 23-year-old man was on Wednesday killed by an angry mob in Kipsikirok village, Mt Elgon constituency, on suspicion that he had raped and murdered a schoolgirl.

The suspect is said to have kidnapped the 14-year-old girl who had been sent to fetch firewood in the nearby Mt Elgon Forest last Saturday.

Chepyuk Assistant Chief Rodgers Sangula said the naked body of the Kibumet Primary School pupil was found with a slit throat the next day.

"We found the minor's body in the forest on Sunday, a day after she went missing. Her throat had been slit open and she had been raped," Sangula told The Standard by phone.

Cheptais sub-county police boss Ezekiel Kiche appealed to the public not to take the law into their own hands, noting that criminal suspects were more useful to the police when they were alive.

"If we arrest them, they can tell us who their accomplices are," he said.