Commentary By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

The time is ripe for the government to launch a full scale investigations with the view to establish the truth about the widely spread rumors that trade in human body parts has of late become a booming trade in some parts of Kenya.

The alarming reports, about missing persons had their dead bodies being discovered in the thickets by relatives with vital body parts missing, now gives credence that there existed cartels of unscrupulous racketeers involved in human body trades in Kenya.

Previously such incidents were simply dismissed as “ritual killings” or connected to religious fanaticism, but until recent years when the government in the neighboring Tanzania made it public that there existed in that country a cartel of people involved in human body parts, particularly of those people with albinism blood {Albinos} such reports were treated like hot-air phantom.

However, the latest reports of incidence of dead bodies being found with private parts now gives credence that the incidences of this magnitude do not involved vampire or the movies like Dracula’s, but the threat is real and increasingly becoming a real menace to the Kenyan society.

A couple of years, the Tanzanian government investigated the cases of Albinos who were being butchered for human body parts trade and prosecuted a number of culprits earning deterrent prison sentences or death sentences nobody here in Kenya or elsewhere could believes that such kid of business is thriving in this region of Africa. But Tanzania swung into action to protect the Albinos came late after close to 60 or more people with albinism blood have perished.

This followed hue and cries by the public, which forced some Albinos people in Tanzania to fled the country to seek security protection in Kenya and in other countries, Rwanda and Burundi followed suit by declaring publicly that Albinos were endangered species of human being. This action prompted Albinos in Kenya to sensitize their plight and sought for maximum security protection by the Kenyan government citing the Tanzanian incidences and saying that they safety in Kenya could not be assured.

A case in point is that of a Kenyan who had successfully lured a young Kenyan man with albinism into Tanzania with the promise of securing a lucrative job in the Tanzanian lakeside City of Mwanza only to be caught in a trap set by the Tanzanian police when the man was just about to sell the Albino man from Kitale in the Rift Valley for hundreds of thousands of shillings to a phantom pseudo witch doctor who later turned out to be a senior police officer. And the Kenya dealer earned many years of imprisonment in Tanzanian jail, and the would be the potential victim of the heinous trade returned home in Kenya and the would victim after escaping death by a whisker.

The ritual killings were previously reported to common in big Cities and towns like Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Kisumu and other smaller towns like Naivasha, Kiambu, Kericho, Eldoret, Kitale, Busia, but such incidences were aliens in most parts of rural areas In Western Kenya.

However, such incidents have of late became so common I regions like Nyamira, Kisii, Rongo,Migori,Namanga,Taveta and so rampant in rural locations in areas close to Kenya-Tanzania common borders pointing t the direction that witches and witchdoctors in neighboring Tanzania who had sent their agents out to hunt Albinos are still in booming trade.

The latest reported incident is that of a tax-driver in Kisii who was hired by smartly dressed men who wanted to be driven to some places. The taxi man was later reported missing for about four days, but decomposing body was later discovered by his relatives in a thicket in Migori about 100 kilometers away is pointing finders to the direction that such trade still thrives on. The man is said to have discovered minus his private parts as well as his eyes gorged out. And his vehicle also went missing.

This particular incident cannot be simply dismissed as the case of car-jacking, but a clear case that trading in human body parts is still thriving in some parts of Kenya. The racketeers in this trade are said to be working in cohort with mortuary attendance workers working in government hospitals and in some privately owned morgues.

These racketeers are said to target the bodies of both male and female and there was unconfirmed rumor of the body of a woman which was sent for preservation in one of the privately owned morgues. The next time when her relatives, mainly women went to the mortuary to have the body washed and properly dressed for its final journey home for burial, they were shocked to see some blood oozing out from the corpse’s private part and upon checking, the relatives got a shock of their life time when they discovered that her private part was missing and only the cotton goose were filled in its place.

According to sources in Migori and Awendo towns the matter was left to rest due to Luo traditional and cultural fear of bringing ‘possible bad omen and shame to the deceased family” if it was made public nor was there any report made to the police for their investigations

The cartel of racketeers involved in this kind of bloody-money trade are said to have posted their agents in most of hospitals mortuaries in the region, and the bodies of the road accident victims, especially those which are badly mutilated in grisly road mishaps are said to be the easiest and best prey for the racketeers because they usually takes the bodies home thinking that perhaps the private parts could have been smashed in the accident or interfered with during the post-mortem exercises, which are usually performed as legal mandatory by government pathologists on the road accident victim bodies and the bodies of those who died as murder victims.

The rumors says what Is facilitating this kind of business in some case, involved relatives ho buy expensive coffins, hand them to the mortuary attendances with instructions t have the bodes of their relatives and properly dressed for the burial. And it said some unpatriotic mortuary attendances are the ones who are working in collaboration with traders in human body parts.

Indeed it is now a common belief that some families might unknowingly been taking the bodies of their dead relatives home from hospital mortuaries for burial minus private parts after such corpses had already been safely placed inside the coffins and only glass windows showing the faces of the deceased left open for the mourners for viewing.

However, when the business of selling the human parts is declining and not flourishing well, the big money not forthcoming, these racketeers resort to unorthodox sending their agents to hunt for human beings like wild antelopes resulting in grisly murder of innocent Kenyans.

And like the money earned by drugs traffickers, the colossal of money raked from the sales of the human body trade could as well be used in financing national and regional elections during the impending general elections slated to be held later this year.

The money suspected to have been earned from this kind of trade or the money earned from drug trafficking, particularly bhang could have been perfectly used during the recently concluded, but controversy ridden ODM grass root elections, which turned to be life threatening in some parts of Luo-Nyanza.

It the duty of the Provincial Administration and police authorities to investigate thee issues to their logical conclusion, and save the sanctity of lives of many Kenyans who are dying and loosing their precious lives at the whims of these money maniacs.

EndsKenya