Child custody row alleged in attack on woman who was gang-raped

 

Fresh details have emerged about the attack on the 23-year-old mother-of-two who was gang-raped and thrown under a train in Mombasa on Saturday.

Aisha Syongula was also slashed on the leg with a machete then trussed up and placed on the railway track.

Thursday, rights groups demanded the arrest and prosecution of the men involved in the attack.

Witnesses who have recorded statements with the police point to a dispute over the custody of the victim’s four-year-old son, whom one of the suspected assailants claims to have sired.

Two of the assailants who are known to Syongula are still at large as her hospital bill soars.

Aisha, who has had both legs amputated following the train crash, is said to have opposed an attempt by one of the assailants to take custody of the child.

‘’They had a serious brawl a week before Aisha got involved in this accident, with the suspected assailant vowing to kill her if she objected to him taking custody of the child,’’ one witness told the police.

The victim is recuperating at the Aga Khan Hospital, where she was admitted last Saturday.

She had surgery Thursday.

Last evening, she told The Standard that her attackers now want to kill her and her mother.

“I want police to arrest my tormentors. They want to kill me and cause untold suffering to my mother and children,” she said.

Syongula’s relatives said they were living in fear of attack by the gang, which, they added, they believed was plotting to interfere with the witnesses who have spoken to the police.