Murang’a man accused of defiling 10-year-old niece on the run


What you need to know:

  • The little girl confessed to the examining doctor on the cruelty she has been undergoing at the hands of her uncle.
  • Murang’a Woman Representative Sabina Chege condemned the incident, terming it sad.


Police in Murang’a are hunting for a 26-year-old man accused to have in the past three months repeatedly defiled his 10-year-old niece.

According to a doctor’s report at Maragua Level Four Hospital, “the sexually related injuries inflicted on the minor are multiple, sore, septic and painful, suggesting they have been applied over time.”

Murang’a South police boss Alexander Shikondi said the statement recorded at the Maragua Police Station by the mother incriminates the girl's uncle in the incestuous crime.

“The mother has complained that she has been housing her brother in her single room for the past three months. She has further said she wakes up early to go and search for odd jobs to make ends meet as a mother of two—the victimised girl and a 14-year-old son. In the afternoon, she leaves the house to report to work where she is a barmaid,” Mr Shikondi said.

Medical examination

The two children are pupils at Kianjiru-ini Primary School and leave the house very early and reports back home when she is already at her workplace. She leaves work at 11 pm.

“It is within that tight schedule that she says she failed to detect early enough the abuse her daughter was going through inside the house until on Saturday. The daughter could not leave the bed and upon enquiries, she told her mother that she was hurting. On examination, the mother reports that she saw a coloured smelly discharge from the girl’s private parts and took her to hospital,” Mr Shikondi said.

It was at the hospital that the little girl narrated to the examining doctor the cruelty she has been undergoing at the hands of her uncle.

“The disclosure was passed on to the mother, who has now officially complained to the police. We are hunting for the man, who has since run away from his sister’s house after she confronted him with the revelation of how he has been preying on the little girl,” Mr Shikondi said.

Serial offender

Murang’a Woman Representative Sabina Chege condemned the incident, terming it sad.

“I am made to understand the man, now on the run, had been chased away from his rural village by irate neighbours who wanted to lynch him for being a criminal. Her sister offered him asylum to protect him from harm. Inside her offered refuge, he has hit her in such a cruel way of defiling her daughter,” she said.

She advised families to cease protecting criminals and be helping security agents to be arresting them for rehabilitative justice. She also wondered how the assault on the little girl went on undetected both by the mother, neigbours and teachers, saying it points to a society that is no longer keen even on matters most important to them.

“We want the police to arrest this man and subject him to due process with an objective of winning a deterrent conviction at the courts. But at the same time, we must also reflect on how we expose ourselves to criminals who live within our families and villages. Above all, we must encourage our children and all of us to be sharing with confidants on the hardship we are going through,” she said.