Why father stored bones belonging to son mauled by hyenas

Early one morning in March 2017, Frederick Kahuha received a distress call from crying fellow villagers, informing him that his brother had been mauled by hyenas in Juja, Kiambu.

They had gathered around a bloody scene with scattered torn clothes and bones, the only remains of Joseph Njuguna Kamau, 64.

They could see the footprints of the beasts.

With other villagers, they went deeper into the forest and found more bones. That evening, the area's police station commander (OCS) visited the home and carried away Kamau’s clothes, boots and some of the bone fragments.

The father of the two, Kamau Njuguna, alias Raymond, kept his son's bones in a locked wooden box under his bed in his two-room house.

The next day, villagers went on another search in the forest and found Kamau’s skull and other bone fragments. A criminal investigations officer and his crew picked up the skull and took it away while other bone fragments were stored in the box.

Brutal death

For a year, Njuguna slept with his son's remains under his bed and when he died, the bones remained in the house. He had only one wish - to have his son given a decent burial even though it wouldn't make up for his brutal death.

On Monday, January 3, more than four years later, crime and forensic investigators from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations homicide unit took out the bones in body bags, setting the stage for Kamau’s burial.

Mr Kahuha, 52, said his brother had left home to herd the family's cattle in the nearby forest. At 4pm, their father went to collect his cattle and left his son chopping firewood. It was the last time he would see the first fruit of his loins.

Because Kamau was known to love his bottle, and had no phone, his family didn’t worry about finding him, assuming he was in a drinking den with his friends.

That was until Mr Kahuha received the bad news.

"A villager found his clothes near where he used to go drinking, and ran home to tell my family, whom I found at the scene. It was devastating," he says.

"We could not bury him because we could not get a burial permit."

Their mother, Margaret Njeri Kamau, was sick and when told that her son's remains had been found, she didn't have the strength to go to the scene. Her heart in pain, she retrieved a picture she had taken with her son and set it on fire.

"I didn’t want to see his picture. I don't even want to hear tales about his death. I have never stepped in that room where his remains lay even though it’s under the same roof," she explains.

"I sleep on the chair now, because when I sleep on my bed in my sitting room, I tend to see him in my dreams. Now that government officials have taken his bones, I pray to God that I get to bury him, and for me to live longer."

Upon their son's death, she said, her late husband changed. He withdrew into himself and would often be found alone, his face in his palms. He developed high blood pressure and was admitted at Thika Level Five Hospital.

He had brain surgery and eventually succumbed to high blood pressure a year later. His last wish was for his family to get a permit and lay his son to rest.

But the hyena problem remains. Villagers speak about the burden of adjusting their lifestyles because of the carnivores.

"We have to do our toilet business before sunset, and lock our cattle in houses, with family members staying alert all night to guard them,” says Agnes Waithera, Mr Kahuha's wife.

“We tie up calves in the homestead, and only take older cattle along the road to an open grazing area where it is easier to care for them.”

Because homes are more than 100 metres from each other, she said, a scream that signals a hyena attack would get residents’ attention but they are scared of the animals and may not be quick to come to the rescue.

“That's bad, because a hyena only needs a minute to rip you apart and run away with your intestines," she says.

She added that in 2021, a villager’s remains were found in a nearby quarry as a cackle of hyenas each ran with a piece of him in their mouths. His clothes were scattered everywhere with a trail of blood in circles.

Mr Kahuha recalled that he and his friend were once trailed one evening by nine hyenas for about three kilometres. The beasts only gave up when they saw a cow and attacked it, giving the men a chance to escape.

Stanley Mbugua, a villager and bodaboda rider, said he meets groups of hyenas almost daily when he takes his clients to and from Komo village and Makongeni.

"I meet them at 5am and in the evening around 8pm. When they see you, they move to the side, wait for you to pass then follow you. They are always more than seven, and my only saviour is speeding up, which works for me because they are slow," he explains.

The hyenas, he said, live in caves in the nearby Buffalo Hills, an area he estimates to be about 10 square kilometres.

On December 25, as Christians all over the world celebrated Christmas, a villager lost his goat to hyenas in broad daylight, and a woman weeding her maize plants came face to face with a fleeing hyena. She was lucky not to be attacked.

"A hyena attacked a child last year as he was going to school in the morning. The hyena made away with his school bag, and the child was saved by nearby villagers who heard him screaming,” says Solomon Kamande, a member of Nyumba Kumi

“Now we are very worried for our children and have to accompany them every morning to school. In the evening, they are safer because they walk in groups."

Besides humans and cattle, he said, even dogs are at risk, especially puppies, and residents must lock their young dogs in the house.

Obadiah Kihanya, the village's community policing chairperson and the head of Nyumba Kumi, expressed disappointment at how the government handles cases of human-wildlife conflict.

"There is no animal more superior than a human being. Yet animals are more valued in Kenya more than human beings. If you are reported to have killed even one hyena, you will be put behind bars,” he laments.

“The Kenya Wildlife Service has never come here to try to resolve the situation, yet they will react swiftly if they hear a hyena has been killed. We live in constant fear, watching our backs, yet they have the resources and skill to tame these animals," he added.

As a form of closure, the Njuguna family matriarch viewed her firstborn son's remains for the last time, before they were loaded onto a police vehicle to be taken to the General Kago Mortuary in Thika.

Martin Nyuguto, who is in charge of the homicide unit at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, said Dr Johansen Oduor, the government pathologist, was expected to conduct a postmortem within the week before the remains are released for burial.

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