ARMED TO FUNERAL: Eight pupils carrying pangas and knives to their teacher's burial arrested at midnight

Eight children were yesterday charged with being in possession of crude weapons.

The court heard the children, from various schools in Maseno, were found with knives and machetes on Friday night.

They were said to have been going for the funeral of a teacher when officers on patrol arrested them.

They could not explain what they intended to do with the weapons, Maseno Senior Principal Magistrate Dolphine Okundi heard. 

They minors were arrested in Nyawita village, Kisumu West sub-county around midnight. Each was slapped with a Sh100,000 bond with sureties of similar amounts but their parents and relatives could not immediately raise the money.

The minors were in the company of a 19-year-old who tried to disguise himself as a child yesterday before a doctor certified him as an adult. He also denied the charges and was handed a Sh300,000 bond with a similar surety.

"The doctors have found out that apart from the first eight suspects, the ninth is a 19-year-old and thus will be charged as an adult," said the magistrate. He is said to be a secondary school student.

Some parents of the eight wept uncontrollably as their children were taken back to the cells.

They begged the court to relax the bail terms but to no avail. "If we do not have money to survive on at home, how do we raise what the court wants?" posed one of the parents