Children hack parents over land

Mombasa, Kenya: A string of murders at the Kenyan Coast has laid bare a chilling conspiracy in which hundreds of parents and grandparents have been killed by their own children who accuse them of being witches.

The brutal killings in which children have hanged, burnt and hacked their own parents and grandparents with machetes has worried local leaders, who now say some conspirators are hiring gangs to carry out the murders. Yet, investigations by police in Kilifi, Lamu and Kwale counties have found that all is not what it seems: the culprits are targeting their parents so that they can inherit land once the elderly people are eliminated.