Eight siblings on the morning of June 10 descended on their mother Susan Wangari in an incident which residents of Kanjuu village, Gichugu Constituency in Kirinyaga County are yet to unravel.
According to locals, the siblings are said to have developed a strange illness after allegedly stealing arrowroots from a neighbouring farm.
The family members aged between 12 and 30-years-old who were dazed and confused, started singing loudly in the middle of the night.
When their mother, Wangari, asked them what was going on, they descended on her with kicks and blows until they broke their leg.
Bundi Muthike one of their neighbours found them sleeping outside their home in the rain.
The 8 were tied up in ropes and bundled into a pickup and taken to Difathas Police Station.
A senior officer referred them to the Kerugoya Hospital where their mother was hospitalised.
The siblings were also admitted to the hospital but two of them managed to flee.
“They beat up their mother so bad they ended up breaking her leg, she is also admitted at the Kerugoya Hospital,” a witness told reporters.
Across Kenya, it has become popular for property owners to seek services of known medicine men for protection against witchcraft attacks.
According to the law “any person who holds himself out as a witchdoctor able to cause fear, annoyance or injury to another in mind, person or property, or who pretends to exercise any kind of supernatural power, witchcraft, sorcery or enchantment calculated to cause such fear, annoyance or injury, shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.”
