Cold blood killings send shivers in Mombasa

Mama Fatuma Hassan breaks in tears as she remembered how her son Ibrahim Hassan was killed by a mob justice at Mtopanga. [Photo by Gideon Maundu/Standard]

Danny Techer, 22, and his two friends had properly washed their hands to eat his favorite late lunch before armed police officers broke into their house and sprayed them with bullets.

At the gruesome murder scene inside their house, a plate of Ugali and sukuma wiki, which could have been their last late lunch, is soaked in fresh blood.

Techer and his friends Abdi Dahir Mire, 22, and a third young man identified only as Munyalla were killed on Monday in their house in Mtongwe area of Likoni in Mombasa.

According to Likoni OCPD Benjamin Rotich the three were killed by the police after they resisted arrest and tried to attack the officers with machetes and panga.

In the neighboring Kisauni area, the story is similar. Last week on Wednesday, police officers stormed a house at Ziwa La Ng’ombe area and killed a suspected robber Zakayo Ogode.

According to Barrister Mweni, the caretaker of the house, 15 officers arrived in the area arrested the suspected but later brought him back to the house before he was shot and killed.

“They (police) blocked all roads. They arrested him but they later brought in back to the house where we had to gun shots before a Land-rover came and collected the body,” said Mweni.

She questioned; “why did they bring him back to the house to assassinate him? If he was a criminal why didn’t they arraign him in court?”

Police Commander Johnston Ipara said deceased, Ogode was a member of a gang that was terrorizing Kisauni and Nyali residents. His body lies at Coast Hospital mortuary.

Other police sources said Ogode led the gang that raided a home of a former senior police officer and stole jewelry worth Sh2 million.

But these killings have occurred in Likoni and Kisauni slums where most of Mombasa’s poor people live and where violent crime, gang warfare and police killings are common.

In one case of gang warfare, two 19 year old boys were killed by a mob suspected to members of rival gang in Mtopanga area of Kisauni on September 9, 2017.

The deceased Ibrahim Hassan’s mother, Fatuma Kombo Hassan, said the gang broke into her son’s house at Manoni II village and killed him and his friend.

Fear and anxiety has now engulfed the two neighbourhoods in Mombasa following the killing of youths and residents blamed on police and gang members in the last few weeks.