Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Awendo Twon

Two traders in Awendo town and its environs have been shot and killed by marauding gun-totting night gangsters and robbed of unspecified amount of money.

So far no arrest has been made. The bodies of the two victims, a man and a woman, are still laying at the mortuary. The two incidents occurred within one week.

In Awendo Town a wholesale trader, known by the name as Mr.Okong’o, had his business premises, which is located next to Awendo Market, raided by the gun-totting night gangsters who shot him six times and made off with unspecified amount of money.

Another incident took place at the nearby Ranen Market, which is located on the main Kisii-Rongo highway and only six kilometers from the main Awendo town. A woman, mother of six, who is running an MPESA outlet at the market, was shot dead and her assailant made off with unspecified amount of money. The residents said the woman had twice been robbed previously by people the deceased had suspected to be the same gangsters.

The woman, according to an eye witness, appeared to have known her attackers and had frantically pleaded with them to take the money, but spare her life, but her plea was ignored by the gangsters, seemed to be hell-bent in concealing their identities.

Another grisly murder occurred outside Awendo Town on Wednesday this week. A man suspected to be involved in the chain of Boda Boda trxis motor-bike theftx in Homa-Bay town and its environs was set ablaze while alive and burnt beyond recognition.

The incident took place not far away from the Awendo Office of the District Commissioner and half away between Awendo and the nearby Luwala Primary and Secondary Schools and within the nucleus estates of the SONYSUGAR Company Ltd on the main Awendo-Migori highway.

The incident caused a two kilometer traffic jam which lasted for a close to one hour. Motorists, Matatu drivers and onlookers, crowded the roadside and watched helplessly as the victim’s body went up in flames as he was shouting for help.

The man and his accomplis were caught red-handed as they made and attempt to rob a boda boda motor bike taxi rider in Homa-Bay Town. One was lynched in a mob justice action. The other, they tied, then him to Migori town 60 kilometers away so that he could show them the House where the stolen motor bikes were hidden.

There has a been a series of boda boda motor bike hijacking and thefts resulting in the riders being either killed or maimed before their machines are taken away with no trace.

More than 250 boda boda motor bikes took part in the exercise riding their bikes all way the from Homa-Bay to Migori town, an action which took many people by surprise. Upon reaching Migori town, the suspected thiefs took the seemingly enraged motor bike taxis riders to a house, where they recovered some helmets of the victims. A man said to have been inside the house took off through the back door on seeing the enraged mob of boda boda taxi riders.

The boda boda men ransacked the house and found some money and other items. They took a pair of mattresses, tied them on one of the bikes, and rode back to Homa-Bay, On reaching an isolated roadside in a place between Awendo and Luwala, they stabbed the victim with a knife, threw him off of the motor bike, placed a mattress over his body and poured on it five liters of kerosene and set it a blaze.

Many onlookers were socked and taken aback at the cruel death the victim underwent and even some woman, particularly mothers, expressed sympathy for an unknown suspected culprit.

At the same time an Homa-Bay politician has called upon the government to seriously address the insecurity situation in some parts of the greater Southern Nyanza region.

Hilary Ochieng’ Alila, the ODM Youth coordinator at the same time, appealed to the youth to work closely with the police and members of the Provincial Administration in a concerted effort to eradicate the waves of crime in the region, which he said has reached the alarming proportion.

He said the waves of crime in the region could only be eradicated through the co-operation of members of the public and the government security agents when people volunteer information about certain characters they suspect be involved in criminal activities which are so detrimental to the development already achieved after hard work.

Alila who has already declared his interesting contesting the Homa-Bay County Senate seat in the forthcoming general election decried the increased spate of crime in the region and asked the government to improve the police night patrol of several marketplaces and schools and other institutions.

Mean while the residents of Awendo and its environs have blamed the rapidly deterioration in crimes situation in the area to the laxity of the policemen working at the Awendo Police Station. They said some of the policemen including the Officer In-charge {OCS} have overstayed in one station for close to ten years and were no longer productive.

Investigations are done haphazardly, giving the criminal elements leeway of escaping punishment as laid down by the law of the land. In some cases when a resident reported for help after an incident of crime had occurred the officers are allegedly asking for Kshs 1,000 to fuel their vehicle before moving to the scene of crime to investigate the incident in a given area, and the criminal are known to use the time lapse to escape the arrest.

Traders and business community in general want the entire police officers Awendo Police Station reshuffled and new men posted to the station. The maintain that new men and women posted at the station could improve the insecurity situation

Ends